Description: An Economist Book of the Year, 2001.
In the 18th century, a debate ensued over the French naturalist Buffon's contention that the New World was in fact geologically new. Historians, naturalists, and philosophers clashed over Buffon's view. This book maintains that the "dispute" was also a debate over historical authority: upon whose sources and facts should naturalists and historians reconstruct the history of the New World and its people. In addressing this question, the author offers a strikingly novel interpretation of the Enlightenment.Review Quotes: "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 B. Taylor, University of California, Berkeley