In the 'dispute of the New World' many eighteenth and nineteenth century historians, naturalists, and moral philosophers from Europe and the Americas sought either to confirm or refute the views of the French naturalist Buffon, who had contended that the New World was in fact geologically new. This book maintains that 'dispute' was also a debate over historical authority: upon whose sources and facts should one reconstruct the history of the continent and its peoples? The author traces the cultural processes that led early-modern intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic to question primary sources long considered authoritative. The book adds to the literature on nation formation by exploring the creation of specific identities in Spain and Spanish America. Colonial intellectuals went beyond mirroring or contesting European ideas and put forth daring and original critiques of European epistemologies that resulted in substantially new historiographical concepts.
Jorge Canizares-Esguerra is Assistant Professor of History at SUNY-Buffalo.
List of illustrations Introduction 1. Towards a new art of reading and new historical interpretations 2. Changing european interpretations of the reliability of indigenous sources 3. Historiography and patriotism in Spain 4. The making of a 'patriontic epistemology' 5. Whose enlightenment was it anyway? Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index.
This title won two prizes from the American Historical Association - the Prize in Atlantic History, and the John Edwin Fagg Prize for Best Publication in the History of Spain and Latin America.
"In view of the breakthrough represented by the achievements of this book, strikingly heterodox and impressively persuasive interpretations of the 'dispute of the New World,' it is of cardinal importance in several fields of history: Latin America, the Spanish monarchy, Enlightenment, historiography, and New World cultural encounters." - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Oxford University "Refreshes our understanding of the colonial past and of the origins of the independence movements in the New World. A masterpiece of scholarly ingenuity." - The Economist (Books of the Year) "The year's best monograph: a startling excavation in Latin America's mental pre-history." - The Independent "A model of scholarship... Explains how Latin America began to form, before independence, in colonial minds. The author leads the reader into beguiling labyrinths: Boturini's lost library, Palenque's ruins, Enlightenment rivalries." - Times Literary "This is an extraordinarily ambitious and illuminating book on the search for new historical narratives in eighteenth-century New Spain. It is a remarkable journey of discovery, a veritable history of historiography for the late colonial period." - William
