The Lettered Mountain

“The Lettered Mountain is destined to become a classic. Tracing the deep and rich history of writing and text production from the time of the Inka Empire to the present day, Frank Salomon and Mercedes Niño-Murcia have written a work that will transform our understanding of the nature, implications, and the consequences of literacy in communities that have, until now, been assumed to be outside the realm of the ‘lettered.’ It is a fascinating and highly stimulating read.”—Gary Urton, Harvard University
“The Lettered Mountain should surprise many readers. Frank Salomon’s and Mercedes Niño-Murcia’s arguments concerning the passage from khipu to alphabetic literacy and the deep roots of alphabetic writing in rural Peru challenge traditional ethnographic portraits of Andean culture as exclusively oral. Their case for refocusing our attention away from schooled literacy and toward forms of legal literacy whose origins go back to the colonial period is backed by insightful ethnography. The Lettered Mountain forces us to see the Andes in a new light, without losing sight of the themes that were important to Andeanists in the past.”—Joanne Rappaport, co-author of Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the Andes
“[A]s the first ethnography of local writing and archiving practices, [The Lettered Mountain] does a marvelous job of describing the centrality of literacy to Andean societies of past and present…With Salomon and Niño-Murcia’s important ethnography, ignoring Andean writing is no longer possible.” -- S. Elizabeth Penry * American Historical Review *
In The Lettered Mountain, Frank Salomon and Mercedes Niño-Murcia explore the evolution of alphabetic literacy in Andean villages, providing a valuable historical overview of this theme from Inka times to the present…. It is further evidence of the complex interplay between socio-political conditions and epistemology and how “Western” visions of modernity are now under siege the world over.” -- Gavin O'Toole * Latin American Review of Books *
"The Lettered Mountain provides historians with a rich template for understanding how peasant archives are constructed in the Andes." -- Alan Durston * Journal of American History *
“Simply put, The Lettered Mountain is a beautifully written book and a must read for those interested in multiple literacies, historiography, and ethnography, as well as colonial and contemporary Latin America.” -- Judy Kalman * Hispanic American Historical Review *