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Assimilating New Worlds in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Michael T. Ryan
Affiliation:
University of Chicaog

Extract

In Carlos Fuentes's recent novel, Terra Nostra, El Señor, an autistic Spanish king who bears a conspicuous resemblance to Philip II, is told of the existence of new worlds across the seas. In outrage and disbelief, he denies that such a thing was possible, for he, El Señor, had decreed that the only world which existed was to be found within the walls of his newly constructed palace. Royal monk that he was, he had ordered the world built for him and so forbade the existence of other worlds.

Type
Western Understanding of Other Cultures
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1981

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References

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