This review essay visualizes eighteenth-century popular insurrections not as casual or isolatedepisodes, but rather as symptomatic expressions of social tensions and heightened conflict;feelings that increased in intensity during the latter half of the century and culminated inthe Great Rebellion of 1780-1783 in the Southern Andes, the 1765 Quito uprising andthe 1781 Comunero Revolt in Nueva Granada. The article examines journal articles andmonographs that address these revolts, acknowledging that academic production on lateeighteenth-century insurrections in the Spanish colonies is itself suspended within largerscholarly debates that address insurrections outside the Andean context and incorporatequestions raised by scholars of peasant rev...