A Note: I tried to sample a large range of books that I felt would help my research. Many of the following books and essays are directly related to the time periods and materials I am interested in. Others offer specific insight into visual studies, early environmental conceptions, or historical figures. I expect the task of synthesizing their information and incorporating their larger points into a timeline that is revealing for my investigation will be the next step in my research. Barrera-Osorio, Antonio. Experiencing Nature: The Spanish American Empire and the Early Scientific Revolution. Austin, University of Texas Press, 2006. Experiencing Nature places greater emphasis on Spanish Empire’s contribution to late 16th and 17th century empiricism than most books that concern themselves with the Scientific Revolution. Barrera-Osorio centers his argument around technological advancements achieved and implemented as a result of Spanish activity in the New World. The manner in which Barrera-Osorio traces the changing understanding of Nature alongside advancements in cosmography and navigation offers initial insight into a relationship I am interested in investigating further. …show more content…
Traveling From New Spain to Mexico: Mapping Practices of Nineteenth Century Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Magali Carrera’s book not only looks at the history of cartography but also brings an art historical perspective into the study of maps and mapmaking in the Spanish New World. Carrera highlights how Mexicans promoted a unique national character separate from their Spanish colonizers through maps and visual representations of their territory. I expect this book to provide more information on the names and works created by those who made this possible. Gerbi, Antonello. Nature in the New World: From Christopher Columbus to Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
The essay starts off by stating, “One could say that the dominant scientific world-view going into the 16th century was not all that “scientific” in the modern sense of the
7. MacLachlan, Colin M. and Jamie E. Rodriguez O. The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Jacques Lafaye, a French historian, published a study pertaining to the intellectual history of New Spain and its development of a national consciousness that would facilitate a move towards independence. Lafaye takes a unique approach of examining the formation of Mexico’s national conciseness by pointing to the importance of religious thought in that process. In this ethnohistorical study the author pays special attention to the interaction of Iberian Christianity and Aztec belief system in New Spain. Through careful analysis the author confronts the merging of these two faiths and their role in the transition from the Aztec world to independent Mexico. Lafaye specifically alludes to the syncretic nature of St.Thomas-Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe-Tonantzin
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. However, what words are being told in the Codex Mensoza 1964, Lám (Brumfiel 1991: 224) and more importantly what influential role did the Spanish heritage have in the artifacts? These credentials were offered as form of resolute of Aztec women’s productive activities in Mexico. Nevertheless, Bromfiel paint a different picture of the Aztec women. In these sketches, Brumfiel draws our attention to the background in which the women are performing their “productive activities.” (Brumfiel 1991: 224) At first glance, these images are portraying Aztec women. However, after careful scrutiny of the photos, I noticed several an uncanny discoveries. In the first two portraits, both of the weaving instruments appear to be bound to Roman and/or Spanish columns (to my untrained eye). In the last two illustrations, I observed “productive activities” (Brumfiel 1991: 224) of cooking being performed, in what appears to be in a non-traditional work environment that does not correspond with the “productive activities” (Brumfiel 1991: 224) of the women in that era. One appears to be working in luxury room while the other seems to be overlooking the mountains from a balcony. Although these duties were performed in a residential setting, the pictures fail to emphasi...
Cabeza De Vaca’s “The Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca” has an objective tone as he describes the Native Americans and their culture. He...
In the early 1500's Mexico was submitted to a cultural change, when the Spanish people arrived to this country. The problem of transforming the lives and culture of the inhabitants of the New World under the influence of people from Europe that completely destroyed the order of existing things and brought in place new structures social-political, previously unknown achievements in the field of material culture and a new conception of the world woke long been the interest of researchers in different specialties within the social sciences, but especially the interest of ethnographers.The problems and the processes linked to complicated set of phenomena of acculturation came to be a subject of many considerations and scientific ...
Mexican American history began in the16th century under Spanish colonialism. The Spanish had a goal of conquest and colonization. Evidently, that goal was successfully accomplished because when the Spanish first arrived in 1492 Mexico’s population was fourteen million, but by the end of the 16th century it had drastically declined to one million. Numbers decreased because of the cruel treatment, forced labor, and disease brought by the Spanish. The Spanish eventually controlled most of the territory in the Southwest and over three hundred towns had been established for the purpose of control and conversion. The Spanish imposed conditions on the natives of Mexico that would belittle them. They aimed to convert them in order to make them re...
“The Conquest of New Spain” is the first hand account of Bernal Diaz (translated by J.M. Cohen) who writes about his personal accounts of the conquest of Mexico by himself and other conquistadors beginning in 1517. Unlike other authors who wrote about their first hand accounts, Diaz offers a more positive outlook of the conquest and the conquistadors motives as they moved through mainland Mexico. The beginning chapters go into detail about the expeditions of some Spanish conquistadors such as Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, Juan de Grijalva and Hernando Cotes. This book, though, focuses mainly on Diaz’s travels with Hernando Cortes. Bernal Diaz’s uses the idea of the “Just War Theory” as his argument for why the conquests were justifiable
From my earliest childhood I remember the open country between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande; the vast expanse of territory that our early historians do not mention in the days of early history. Sometimes I have wondered why it is that our forefathers who helped with their money, their supplies, and their own energies have been entirely forgotten. (Zamora O’Shea n.p.)
Seler, Eduard, Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann, Paul Schellhas, Karl Sapper, E. P. Dieseldorff, and Charles P. Bowditch. Mexican and Central American Antiquities, Calendar Systems, and History: Twenty-four Papers. Washington: G.P.O., 1904. Print.
The first great Hispanic achievement in science that has been recorded in history goes all the way back to the late sixteenth century. The natives of Puerto Rico relied on their astronomical knowledge for the tilling of their crops. In 1581, Juan Ponce de León II analyzed an eclipse and its effects on Puerto Rico. When he was exploring the marvel of this eclipse he established the exact geographical coordinates of the city of San Juan with his experiments. His contributions not only created a better understanding of where this place was exactly and paved the way for colonialism in America, but also kick started thousands of more contributions in science by many culturally different people. There have been m...
According to Kleiner’s analysis of the Native Arts of the Americas, the following is a summary of the events that lead to the production and discoveries of America before the 1300s.
Arciniegas, German. Amerigo and the New World: The life and Times Of Amerigo Vespucci. Knopf, NY, 1955
Historical geographer JB Harley wrote an essay on Map Deconstruction in 1989, in which Harley argues that a map is more than just a geographical representation of an area, his theory is that we need to look at a map not just as a geographical image but in its entire context. Harley points out that by an examination of the social structures that have influenced map making, that we may gain more knowledge about the world. The maps social construction is made from debate about what it should show. Harley broke away from the traditional argument about maps and examined the biases that govern the map and the map makers, by looking at what the maps included or excluded. Harley’s “basic argument within this essay is that we should encourage an epistemological shift in the way we interpret the nature of cartography.” Therefore Harley’s aim within his essay on ‘Deconstructing the Map’ was to break down the assumed ideas of a map being a purely scientific creation.
...ed in the discovery and eventual colonization of North and South America. Painters, sculptors, and architects exhibited a similar sense of adventure and the desire for greater knowledge and new solutions; Leonardo da Vinci, like Christopher Columbus, discovered whole new worlds. With a new emphasis on the science, people like Philippo Brunelleschi were accomplishing great feats of artistic and architectural design. The new Renaissance “style” that emerged during this period called upon the classical roots of ancient Greece and Rome but new scientific understanding and a stronger emphasis on the individual also influenced the works created during this period.Bibliography Rice Jr., Eugene F.; Anthony Grafton. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559. W. W. Norton & Company. New York, NY, 1993. Helton, Tinsley. World Book Encyclopedia, v16. “Renaissance”, pp. 222-224. World Book–Childcraft International Inc. Chicago, IL, 1979. Vasari, Gorgio. Lives of the Artists. Penguin Books Ltd. London, England, 1987