Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Body of the Conquistador
  • Cited by 124
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
August 2012
Print publication year:
2012
Online ISBN:
9780511763359
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511763359
Subjects:
Area Studies, Latin American Studies, History, Regional History after 1500, Latin American History
Series:
Critical Perspectives on Empire
Information

Book description

This fascinating history explores the dynamic relationship between overseas colonisation and the bodily experience of eating. It reveals the importance of food to the colonial project in Spanish America and reconceptualises the role of European colonial expansion in shaping the emergence of ideas of race during the Age of Discovery. Rebecca Earle shows that anxieties about food were fundamental to Spanish understandings of the new environment they inhabited and their interactions with the native populations of the New World. Settlers wondered whether Europeans could eat New World food, whether Indians could eat European food and what would happen to each if they did. By taking seriously their ideas about food we gain a richer understanding of how settlers understood the physical experience of colonialism and of how they thought about one of the central features of the colonial project. The result is simultaneously a history of food, colonialism and race.

Awards

Winner of the 2013 Bolton-Johnson Prize for Best Book in English on Latin American History

Reviews

‘With its focus on food and corporeal well-being, [this book] opens a fascinating new chapter in Spain’s conquest and colonization of the Americas. What were Spaniards to eat as they encountered unfamiliar foodstuffs … that reportedly did irreparable damage to both body and mind? As for the natives, was their stature and temperament connected to ‘the poor quality of the food they eat’? … As Earle explains in this new important study, these and related questions sparked lively debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Stunningly original and deeply researched, her book is not to be missed. It is essential reading for both the history of the Americas and early modern ideas about the relationship between food, culture, bodies, and health.’

Richard L. Kagan - Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor of History, The Johns Hopkins University

'This book is a highly original study that uses a new and very fruitful methodological approach. Earle’s research is superb and far- ranging. This is certainly a study that specialists of the colonial world, food history, and race should read.'

Source: Hispanic American Historical Review

'Clearly written and based on impressive primary and secondary research, Earle's book belongs in every academic and large public library. Essential.'

Source: Choice

'With this well-researched, erudite, and nuanced work, Earle has fundamentally shifted discussions of the colonial body, environmental history and the colonial enterprise itself … This fine book deserves a place on every Hispanist’s bookshelf and will serve admirably in seminars on colonial Latin American and environmental history.'

Jacqueline Holler Source: Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents
  • 1 - Humoralism and the colonial body
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • HTML
    • Export citation

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.