On the Wings of Time: Rome, the Incas, Spain, and Peru - Softcover

MacCormack, Sabine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691140952 ISBN 13: 9780691140957

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Historians have long recognized that the classical heritage of ancient Rome contributed to the development of a vibrant society in Spanish South America, but was the impact a one-way street? Although the Spanish destruction of the Incan empire changed the Andes forever, the civil society that did emerge was not the result of Andeans and Creoles passively absorbing the wisdom of ancient Rome. Rather, Sabine MacCormack proposes that civil society was born of the intellectual endeavors that commenced with the invasion itself, as the invaders sought to understand an array of cultures. Looking at the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century people who wrote about the Andean region that became Peru, MacCormack reveals how the lens of Rome had a profound influence on Spanish understanding of the Incan empire.

Tracing the varied events that shaped Peru as a country, MacCormack shows how Roman and classical literature provided a framework for the construal of historical experience. She turns to issues vital to Latin American history, such as the role of language in conquest, the interpretation of civil war, and the founding of cities, to paint a dynamic picture of the genesis of renewed political life in the Andean region. Examining how missionaries, soldiers, native lords, and other writers employed classical concepts to forge new understandings of Peruvian society and history, the book offers a complete reassessment of the ways in which colonial Peru made the classical heritage uniquely its own.

About this title

About the Author

Sabine MacCormack is Theodore Hesburgh Professor of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame. Her books include "Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru" (Princeton).

From the Back Cover

"On the Wings of Time is a delight to read. MacCormack's meditations are those of a master scholar and storyteller; this is a very significant and novel contribution to our understanding of South American history."--Sabine Hyland, Saint Norbert College

"This book is pathbreaking in its approach to the historiography of the Spanish colonial world. MacCormack has exquisite control of the relevant sources, and weaves them together in a masterful and original way."--Bruce Mannheim, University of Michigan

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691140952
• ISBN 13: 9780691140957
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344