The Conquest of America is a fascinating study of cultural confrontation in the New World, with implications far beyond sixteenth-century America. The book offers an original interpretation of the Spaniards’ conquest, colonization, and destruction of pre-Columbian cultures in Mexico and the Caribbean. Using sixteenth-century sources, the distinguished French writer and critic Tzvetan Todorov examines the beliefs and behavior of the Spanish conquistadors and of the Aztecs, adversaries in a clash of cultures that resulted in the near extermination of Mesoamerica’s Indian population.

The Conquest of America

History

Todorov

Americas

Tzvetan Todorov argues that although our liberal democracies are the offspring of the Enlightenment, they also illustrate the ways in which its ideas have been distorted and perverted. People living in contemporary democracies are often baffled by phenomena which resist easy judgement: globalisation and media omnipotence; disinformation and state-sponsored torture; moralism and the right of intervention; the dominance of economics and the triumph of technology. In this book, Todorov shows that we cannot learn lessons from the past unless we know how to relate them to the present. He demonstrates that what remains relevant to today is the spirit expressed in the core principles and values for which the Enlightenment stood. In a period of great uncertainty, In Defence of the Enlightenment could not be more timely.

In Defence of the Enlightenment

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Atlantic

Intro a La Litterature Fantastique

Editions Du Seuil

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Books by Todorov