The Alchemy of Conquest: Science, Religion, and the Secrets of the New World (Writing the Early Americas) - Hardcover

Ralph Bauer (author); Anna Brickhouse (Series Edited By) & Kirsten Silva Gruesz (Series Edited By)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813942543 ISBN 13: 9780813942544

Publisher: University of Virginia Press, 2019

Synopsis

The Age of the Discovery of the Americas was concurrent with the Age of Discovery in science. In The Alchemy of Conquest, Ralph Bauer explores the historical relationship between the two, focusing on the connections between religion and science in the Spanish, English, and French literatures about the Americas during the early modern period.

As sailors, conquerors, travelers, and missionaries were exploring "new worlds," and claiming ownership of them, early modern men of science redefined what it means to "discover" something. Bauer explores the role that the verbal, conceptual, and visual language of alchemy played in the literature of the discovery of the Americas and in the rise of an early modern paradigm of discovery in both science and international law. The book traces the intellectual and spiritual legacies of late medieval alchemists such as Roger Bacon, Arnald of Villanova, and Ramon Llull in the early modern literature of the conquest of America in texts written by authors such as Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, José de Acosta, Nicolás Monardes, Walter Raleigh, Thomas Harriot, Francis Bacon, and Alexander von Humboldt.

 

About this title

About the Author

Ralph Bauer is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland and the author of The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures: Empire, Travel, Modernity.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813942543
• ISBN 13: 9780813942544
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 640