The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, and Colonization

Mignolo, Walter D.

ISBN 10: 047210327X / ISBN 13: 9780472103270

Published by Univ of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1995

About this Item

First edition 1995, first printing, number line starts with 1. Hardcover in full cloth with DJ. Condition new, square tight and crisp book, no edgewear, no markings of any kind, no names no underlinings no highlights no bent page corner, Not a reminder. DJ new, bright and shiny, no edgewear no tears no chips, Not clipped. No highlighting or underlining. 8vo, 426 pages with b/w illustrations and including notes, bibliography, index and illustration credits.

Seller Inventory # 003654

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, and Colonization
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 047210327X
• ISBN 13: 9780472103270
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • 1st
  • Americana
  • History

About this title

Synopsis

Winner of the Modern Language Association's Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize.

The Darker Side of the Renaissance weaves together literature, semiotics, history, historiography, cartography, geography, and cultural theory to examine the role of language in the colonization of the New World.

Walter D. Mignolo locates the privileging of European forms of literacy at the heart of New World colonization. He examines how alphabetic writing is linked with the exercise of power, what role "the book" has played in colonial relations, and the many connections between writing, social organization, and political control. It has long been acknowledged that Amerindians were at a disadvantage in facing European invaders because native cultures did not employ the same kind of texts (hence "knowledge") that were validated by the Europeans. Yet no study until this one has so thoroughly analyzed either the process or the implications of conquest and destruction through sign systems.

Starting with the contrasts between Amerindian and European writing systems, Mignolo moves through such topics as the development of Spanish grammar, the different understandings of the book as object and text, principles of genre in history-writing, and an analysis of linguistic descriptions and mapping techniques in relation to the construction of territoriality and understandings of cultural space.

The Darker Side of the Renaissance will significantly challenge commonplace understandings of New World history. More importantly, it will continue to stimulate and provide models for new colonial and post-colonial scholarship.

". . . a contribution to Renaissance studies of the first order. The field will have to reckon with it for years to come, for it will unquestionably become the point of departure for discussion not only on the foundations and achievements of the Renaissance but also on the effects and influences on colonized cultures." -- Journal of Hispanic/ Latino Theology

Walter D. Mignolo is Professor in the Department of Romance Studies and the Program in Literature, Duke University.

About the Author

Walter D. Mignolo is Professor in the Department of Romance Studies and the Program in Literature at Duke University.