A NEW WORLD OF ANIMALS by Miguel de Asua, Roger French ( 9780754607793 )

Item Details

Title:

A NEW WORLD OF ANIMALS
EARLY MODERN EUROPEANS ON THE CREATURES OF IBERIAN AMERICA

By:

Miguel de Asua, Roger French

Format:

Hardback

List price:

£135.00

Our price:

£121.50

Discount:

10% off

You save:

£13.50

ISBN 10:

0754607798

ISBN 13:

9780754607793

Availability:

Usually dispatched within 1-3 weeks.

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Stock:

Currently 0 available

Publisher:

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Pub. date:

28 August, 2005

Pages:

276

Description:

Shows how the wonder at the beasts gave way to a utilitarian approach, assessing their medical potential. This book traces the amazement of the explorers and colonizers, the chronicles of soldiers and Indians, the natural histories of the New World, and the place of animals in the network of interests driving the early expansion of Europe.

Synopsis:

Many Early Modern Europeans who during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries travelled to the New World left written or pictorial records of their encounters with a surprising fauna. The story told in this book is woven out of the threads of those texts and pictures. A New World of Animals shows how the initial wonder at the new beasts gave way to a more utilitarian approach, assessing their economic and medical potential. It elucidates how shifts in European perceptions brought the animals from the realm of the fantastic into the mainstream of early modern natural history, while at the same time changing the way in which Europeans saw their own world. Indeed, the chronicles and treatises of those who in the wake of the discovery arrived in the new lands tell as much about the particular interests and mental worlds of the writers as about the 'new animals'. This book traces the amazement of the first explorers and colonizers, the chronicles of soldiers and Indians, the 'natural histories of the New World', the place of animals in the network of economic interests driving the early expansion of Europe, the views of the missionaries and those of natural philosophers and physicians.Taking the reader from the Brazilian forests to the erudite cabinets of the Old World, from Patagonia to the centres of empire, the story of the discovery of the unexpected menagerie of the New World is also an exploration of Early Modern European imagination and learning.

Illustrations:

Includes 20 b&w illustrations and 2 maps

Publication:

Imprint:

Ashgate Publishing Limited

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

A NEW WORLD OF ANIMALS

ANCIENT NATURAL HISTORY