131-016 Europeans and Conquest A

This subject is a study of the ways in which Europeans created a self-identity which put Europe at the centre of the world and the part which this played in the European conquest of the Americas. Topics will include the role of print; knowledge of the classical world and religious belief in the formation of European attitudes towards American cultures; ideas of possession and conquest in the confrontation of Columbus and the Tainos in the Caribbean, of Cortes and the Aztecs in Mexico, and in the debates about the nature of the Indians; and travel literature and the shock of 'new world'; early English encounters in North America. Students who complete the subject should have a knowledge of European encounters with Amerindian cultures and the nature of European cultural developments in the 16th century.