Authors: Carlos Fuentes
ISBN-13: 9780395924990, ISBN-10: 0395924995
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Date Published: January 1999
Edition: None
Carlos Fuentes is the author of Terra Nostra, The Old Gringo, and The Crystal Frontier as well as numerous literary and political essays.
As the Los Angeles Times said: "Drawing expertly on five centuries of the cultural history of Europe and the Americas, Fuentes seeks to capture the spirit of the new, vibrant, and enduring civilization [in the New World] that began in Spain." Fuentes's singular success in this remarkable endeavor has made the book a classic in its field.
Mexican novelist and statesman Fuentes believes that a common cultural heritage can help the countries of Latin America transcend disunity and fragmentation. In a splendidly illustrated survey, companion to a TV series, he perceptively explores Spanish America's love-hate relationship with Spain and its search for an identity in its multicultural roots. His guiding metaphor is the mirror--whether the glass found in Olmec tombs that guided the dead through the underworld, or Cervantes's Knight of the Mirror, who attempted to cure Don Quixote of madness. In the popular assemblies of medieval Spain's townships, Fuentes finds a model for democratic change in Latin American nations warped by oligarchy and U.S. imperialism. He paints a composite portrait of a dynamic culture through sophisticated meditations on Hernand Cortes's Machiavellian character, Spain's self-mutilating expulsion of its Jews, the pillage of Indian society, Goya and the Enlightenment, Bolivar's quest for self-rule, modern painting, and the Hispanic community in the U.S. 50,000 first printing; author tour. (Apr.)
Introduction | 8 | |
Pt. I | The Virgin and the Bull | |
1 | Sun and Shadow | 15 |
2 | The Conquest of Spain | 33 |
3 | The Reconquest of Spain | 51 |
4 | 1492: The Crucial Year | 79 |
Pt. II | The Conflict of the Gods | |
5 | The Rise and Fall of the Indian World | 93 |
6 | The Conquest and Reconquest of the New World | 119 |
Pt. III | Children of La Mancha | |
7 | The Age of Empire | 151 |
8 | The Century of Gold | 171 |
9 | The Baroque Culture of the New World | 195 |
10 | The Age of Goya | 215 |
11 | Toward Independence | 233 |
Pt. IV | The Price of Freedom | |
12 | Simon Bolivar and Jose De San Martin | 249 |
13 | The Time of Tyrants | 261 |
14 | The Culture of Independence | 277 |
15 | Land and Liberty | 299 |
Pt. V | Unfinished Business | |
16 | Latin America | 313 |
17 | Contemporary Spain | 331 |
18 | Hispanic U.S.A. | 341 |
The Monarchs of Spain | 356 | |
Sources and Readings | 366 | |
Illustration Credits | 385 | |
Acknowledgments | 388 | |
Index | 389 |