Rereading the Black Legend
The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires
9780226307220
9780226307244
Rereading the Black Legend
The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires
The phrase “The Black Legend” was coined in 1912 by a Spanish journalist in protest of the characterization of Spain by other Europeans as a backward country defined by ignorance, superstition, and religious fanaticism, whose history could never recover from the black mark of its violent conquest of the Americas. Challenging this stereotype, Rereading the Black Legend contextualizes Spain’s uniquely tarnished reputation by exposing the colonial efforts of other nations whose interests were served by propagating the “Black Legend.”
A distinguished group of contributors here examine early modern imperialisms including the Ottomans in Eastern Europe, the Portuguese in East India, and the cases of Mughal India and China, to historicize the charge of unique Spanish brutality in encounters with indigenous peoples during the Age of Exploration. The geographic reach and linguistic breadth of this ambitious collection will make it a valuable resource for any discussion of race, national identity, and religious belief in the European Renaissance.
448 pages | 31 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2008
History: European History
Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature, Romance Languages
Reviews
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan
Part I Two Empires of the East
2 An Imperial Caste: Inverted Racialization in the Architecture of Ottoman Sovereignty
Leslie Peirce
3 Hierarchies of Age and Gender in the Mughal Construction of Domesticity and Empire
Ruby Lal
Part II Spain: Conquista and Reconquista
4 Race and the Middle Ages: The Case of Spain and Its Jews
David Nirenberg
5 The Spanish Race
Barbara Fuchs
6 The Black Legend and Global Conspiracies: Spain, the Inquisition, and the Emerging Modern World
Irene Silverblatt
7 Of Books, Popes, and Huacas; or, The Dilemmas of Being Christian
Gonzalo Lamana
8 The View of the Empire from the Altepetl: Nahua Historical and Global Imagination
SilverMoon and Michael Ennis
9 “Race” and “Class” in the Spanish Colonies of America: A Dynamic Social Perception
Yolanda Fabiola Orquera
10 Unfixing Race
Kathryn Burns
Part III Dutch Designs
11 Discipline and Love: Linschoten and the Estado da Índia
Carmen Nocentelli-Truett
12 Rereading Theodore de Bry’s Black Legend
Patricia Gravatt
Part IV Belated England
13 West of Eden: American Gold, Spanish Greed, and the Discourses of English Imperialism
Edmund Valentine Campos
14 Blackening “the Turk” in Roger Ascham’s A Report of Germany (1553)
Linda Bradley Salamon
15 Nations into Persons
Jeffrey Knapp
Afterword: What Does the Black Legend Have to Do with Race?
Walter D. Mignolo
Notes
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
1 Introduction
Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan
Part I Two Empires of the East
2 An Imperial Caste: Inverted Racialization in the Architecture of Ottoman Sovereignty
Leslie Peirce
3 Hierarchies of Age and Gender in the Mughal Construction of Domesticity and Empire
Ruby Lal
Part II Spain: Conquista and Reconquista
4 Race and the Middle Ages: The Case of Spain and Its Jews
David Nirenberg
5 The Spanish Race
Barbara Fuchs
6 The Black Legend and Global Conspiracies: Spain, the Inquisition, and the Emerging Modern World
Irene Silverblatt
7 Of Books, Popes, and Huacas; or, The Dilemmas of Being Christian
Gonzalo Lamana
8 The View of the Empire from the Altepetl: Nahua Historical and Global Imagination
SilverMoon and Michael Ennis
9 “Race” and “Class” in the Spanish Colonies of America: A Dynamic Social Perception
Yolanda Fabiola Orquera
10 Unfixing Race
Kathryn Burns
Part III Dutch Designs
11 Discipline and Love: Linschoten and the Estado da Índia
Carmen Nocentelli-Truett
12 Rereading Theodore de Bry’s Black Legend
Patricia Gravatt
Part IV Belated England
13 West of Eden: American Gold, Spanish Greed, and the Discourses of English Imperialism
Edmund Valentine Campos
14 Blackening “the Turk” in Roger Ascham’s A Report of Germany (1553)
Linda Bradley Salamon
15 Nations into Persons
Jeffrey Knapp
Afterword: What Does the Black Legend Have to Do with Race?
Walter D. Mignolo
Notes
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
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