This book is constructed around the unusual circumstance that between 1560 and 1620 approximately 1,000 people left the Castilian town of Brihuega (population ca. 4,000) and settled in a single transatlantic destination, the Mexican city of Puebla. While emigration from Spain was not unusual, the concentration of settlers from one origin at a single destination was apparently unique. This circumstance allows the author to compare the behavior of communities with a common background in two different settings. The results are both interesting and frustrating.