Kris Lane (PhD, University of Minnesota) is the France V. Scholes Chair in Colonial Latin American History at Tulane University. Kris specializes in colonial Latin American history and the Atlantic world, and his great hope is to globalize the teaching and study of the early Americas. His publications include Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750; Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition; and Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires. He also edited Bernardo de Vargas Machuca’s The Indian Militia and Description of the Indies and Defense and Discourse of the Western Conquest.