Manyebook

The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology

This book gives a new interpretation of the reception of the new world by the old. It is the first in-depth study of the pre-Enlightenment methods by which Europeans attempted to describe and classify the American Indian and his society. Between 1512 and 1724 a simple determinist view of human society was replaced by a more sophisticated relativist approach. Anthony Pagden uses new methods of technical analysis, already developed in philosophy and anthropology, to examine four groups of writers who analysed Indian culture: the sixteenth-century theologian, Francisco de Vitoria, and his followers; the 'champion of the Indians' Bartolom� de Las Casas; and the Jesuit historians Jos� de Acosta and Joseph Fran�ois Lafitau. Dr Pagden explains the sources for their theories and how these conditioned their observations. He also examines for the first time the key terms in each writer's vocabulary — words such as 'barbarian' and 'civil' — and the assumptions that lay beneath them.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 284
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780521337045
  • Genres
  • history, anthropology
  • Release date
  • 1987