The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures

Download or read book The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures written by Ralph Bauer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-08-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ralph Bauer presents a comparative investigation of colonial prose narratives in Spanish and British America from 1542 to 1800. He discusses narratives of shipwreck, captivity, and travel, as well as imperial and natural histories of the New World in the context of transformative early modern scientific ideologies. Bauer positions the narrative models promoted by the 'New Sciences' during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries within the context of the geopolitical question of how knowledge can be centrally controlled in outwardly expanding empires.