From reviews of the first edition:

"This intriguing study of women's role in household, town, and regional economic activity is a very revealing and important contribution to the growing literature on women and social change in Latin America.... Scholars and undergraduates interested in the Indians of Mesoamerica, and, more generally, in the changing relations of men and women everywhere, will welcome this book."

—Choice

"Ehlers clearly shows the differential impact of capital penetration on women's survival strategies by social class, showing how options for some are limited, for others expanded, but changed for all. Silent Looms would be...an important book to include in courses on women in Latin America, women in development, and feminist methodologies."

—Association for Women in Development Newsletter

"Ehlers weaves a lively tale as colorful as the huipiles worn by the women she studies. She embroiders the small details that bring to life a whole town of women and children."

—Latin American Research Review

Based on new fieldwork in 1997, Tracy Bachrach Ehlers has updated her classic study of the effects of economic development on the women weavers of San Pedro Sacatepéquez. Revisiting many of the women she interviewed in the 1970s and 1980s and revising her earlier hopeful assessment of women's entrepreneurial opportunities, Ehlers convincingly demonstrates that development and commercial growth in the region have benefited men at the expense of women.