"In this carefully researched and thoughtfully crafted book, Lisa Voigt makes a compelling case against JosÉ Antonio Maravall's argument that civic festivals were among the key practices used by church and crown to direct the culture of the Hispanic world during the Baroque period." (Bulletin of the Comediantes) "[A] richly researched, methodologically original, and lucidly-written study of eighteenth-century Baroque festival culture in South America." (Bulletin of Spanish Studies) "Spectacular Wealth is an exceptionally well-documented and beautifully written book. In sum: a model of critical clarity." (Renaissance Quarterly) "Spectacular Wealth challenges us to analyze the multiplicity of the interventions and interpretations enacted in these festivals and to transcend the borders of any one empire on our scholarship." (Hispanic American Historical Review) "A well-constructed and complex narrative...Voigt has succeeded in bringing together first-hand eighteenth-century festival accounts with secondary sources and theories on diverse aspects of culture in colonial South America into a seamless narrative." (Portuguese Studies) "An important contribution to the discussion of race, religion, and wealth in colonial Latin America seen through festive cultural celebrations…Voigt does an outstanding job of truly integrating colonial Brazil in the examination of Spanish American colonial texts by looking at the important interconnections that exist among both." (Revista de Estudios Hispánicos)
