The idea of Latin America / Walter D. Mignolo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mignolo, Walter.

Series:

Blackwell manifestos

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Colonization.

Latin America--Name.

Latin America--History--Philosophy.

Latin America.

History.

Philosophy.

Latin America--Civilization--European influences.

Civilization.

Latin America--Race relations.

Race relations.

Latin America--Colonization.

Physical Description:

xx, 198 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2005.

Summary:

The term "Latin" America supposes that there is an America that is Latin, which can be defined in opposition to one that is not. This geo-political manifesto revisits the idea of Latinity, charting the history of the concept from its emergence in Europe under France's leadership, through its appropriation by the Creole elite of South America and the Spanish Caribbean in the second half of the nineteenth century, up to the present day. Reinstating the indigenous peoples, the enormous population of African descent and the 40 million Latino/as in the US that are rendered invisible by the image of a homogenous Latin America, the author asks what is at stake in the survival of an idea which subdivides the Americas. He explains why an "American Union" similar to the European Union is at this point unthinkable and he insists on the pressing need to leave behind an idea of Latinity which belongs to the nation-building mentality of nineteenth-century Europe.

Contents:

The Americas, Christian expansion, and the modern/colonial foundation of racism

"Latin" America and the first reordering of the modern/colonial world

After "Latin" America : the colonial wound and the epistemic geo-/body-political shift.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [163]-181) and index.

ISBN:

1405100850

1405100869

OCLC:

58546935

Publisher Number:

9781405100854

9781405100861