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From the twelfth century, a growing sense of cultural confidence in the Latin West (at the same time that the central lands of Islam suffered from numerous waves of conquest and devastation) was accompanied by the increasing importance of the genre of empirical ethnographies. From a a global perspective what is most distinctive of Europe is the genre's long-term impact rather than its mere empirical potential, or its ethnocentrism (all of which can also be found in China and in Islamic cultures). Hence what needs emphasizing is the multiplication of original writings over time, their increased circulation, and their authoritative status as a 'scientific' discourse. The empirical bent was mor...
A detailed study of the encounter between Europeans and non-Europeans during the early modern period, first published in 2000.
A much-needed contribution to the expanding interest in the history of travel and travel writing, Voyages and Visions is the first attempt to sketch a cultural history of travel from the sixteenth century to the present day. The essays address the theme of travel as a historical, literary and imaginative process, focusing on significant episodes and encounters in world history. The contributors to this collection include historians of art and of science, anthropologists, literary critics and mainstream cultural historians. Their essays encompass a challenging range of subjects, including the explorations of South America, India and Mexico; mountaineering in the Himalayas; space travel; science fiction; and American post-war travel fiction. Voyages and Visions is truly interdisciplinary, and essential reading for anyone interested in travel writing. With essays by Kasia Boddy, Michael Bravo, Peter Burke, Melissa Calaresu, Jesus Maria Carillo Castillo, Peter Hansen, Edward James, Nigel Leask, Joan-Pau Rubies and Wes Williams.
Joan-Pau Rubiés brings together here eleven studies published between 1991 and 2005 that illuminate the impact of travel writing on the transformation of early modern European culture. The new worlds that European navigation opened up at the turn of the 16th century elicited a great deal of curiosity and were the subject of a vast range of writings, much of them with an empirical basis, albeit often subtly fictionalized. In the context of intense literary and intellectual activity that characterized the Renaissance, the encounters generated by European colonial activities in fact produced a remarkable variety of images of human diversity. Some of these images were conditioned by the actual ...
Joan-Pau Rubiés brings together here eleven studies published between 1991 and 2005 that illuminate the impact of travel writing on the transformation of early modern European culture. The new worlds that European navigation opened up at the turn of the 16th century elicited a great deal of curiosity and were the subject of a vast range of writings, much of them with an empirical basis, albeit often subtly fictionalized. In the context of intense literary and intellectual activity that characterized the Renaissance, the encounters generated by European colonial activities in fact produced a remarkable variety of images of human diversity. Some of these images were conditioned by the actual ...
Over the past 30 years, cultural history has moved from the periphery to the centre of historical studies, profoundly influencing the way we look at and analyze all aspects of the past. In this volume, a distinguished group of international historians has come together to consider the rise of cultural history in general, and to highlight the particular role played in this rise by Peter Burke, the first professor of Cultural History at the University of Cambridge and one of the most prolific and influential authors in the field. Reflecting the many and varied interests of Peter Burke, the essays in this volume cover a broad range of topics, geographies and chronologies. Grouped into four sect...
This text examines the late-18th-century changes to the circumstances of Eurafricans - the offspring of Jewish, French, Dutch and English traders in western Africa.
This volume is concerned with the hitherto neglected role of the humanities in the histories of the idea of race. Its aim is to begin to fill in this significant lacuna. If, in the decades following World War II and the Holocaust – years that witnessed European decolonization and the African-American civil rights movement – the concept of ‘race’ slowly but surely lost its legitimacy as a cultural, political and scientific category, for much of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century concepts of race enjoyed widespread currency in numerous fields of knowledge such as the history of art, history, musicology, or philosophy. Bringing together some of the most distinguished scholars in their respective fields, this is the first collective attempt to address the history of notions of race in the humanities as a whole.
The familiar image of Nero (37-68 A.D.) is that of a tyrannical, lustful, and inept emperor. This collection of thirteen original essays provides a fresh interpretation of Nero and his era, assessing the full spectrum of the period's culture and politics--aspects that until now have rarely been taken seriously. The introduction sets the myth of Nero in a modern context and explores its enduring fascination. The next section of the book examines how the myth of Nero has developed both in Roman historiography and in modern popular culture, including films. The remaining essays address the culture of Neroian Rome, including its history, literature, art, and architecture. The result is a dramatic reevaluation of the era, recapturing the richness and vitality of the age of Nero. The contributors are Susan E. Alcock, Tamsyn Barton, Catherine Connors, Catharine Edwards, Jas Elsner, Justin Goddard, Emily Gowers, Jamie Masters, Joan Pau-Rubies, Alessandro Schiesaro, Yun Lee Too, Gareth Williams, and Maria Wyke.
Cultures shift by absorbing outside influences and dealing creativeley with them. In the age of European expansion the Europeans gradually changed their view of the world. Missionaries propagated their religion and had to learn how to approach those whom they wanted to convert. Non-Europeans adapted European ideas and used them in their own social context, like the Mexican Indian nobleman who re-wrote Calderon's plays in Nahuatl or the Brazilians who created a new popular culture. This volume contains many interesting contributions of this kind and highlights cultural history which has often been eclipsed by political and economic history.