Abstract
In The Formation of Latin American Nations, Thomas Ward embarks on a necessary journey to the pre-Hispanic origins of Latin America nations. With a masterfully employed decolonial approach, Ward studies in detail the fundamental ingredients of Mesoamerican and Andean cultures from late antiquity until early modernity. The author argues that these cultures and their sociopolitical organizations reveal a pre-Enlightenment concept of nation that was as complex as its contemporary counterpart across the Atlantic. En The Formation of Latin American Nations, Thomas Ward se embarca en un viaje necesario a los orígenes prehispánicos de las naciones de América Latina. Con un enfoque decolonial magistralmente empleado, Ward estudia en detalle los ingredientes fundamentales de las culturas mesoamericanas y andinas desde la antigüedad tardía hasta la temprana modernidad. El autor argumenta que estas culturas y sus organizaciones sociopolíticas revelan un concepto de la nación anterior al de la Ilustración y tan complejo como su contraparte contemporánea al otro lado del Atlántico.
Highlights
Ward intervenes in the debate about the meaning of nation and its competing perspectives—especially those held by Eric J
Engaging with what Matthew Restall has called “New Philology,” Ward analyzes in Chapter 2 the ethnic nations formed in Mesoamerica up until the Spanish invasion
Making use of Nahuatl sources such as the Florentine Codex, written by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún with the assistance of his native informants from 1545 to 1590, and Spanish-language chronicles such as the Mestizo historian Diego Muñoz Camargo’s Historia de Tlaxcalteca (c. 1585) and the Castizo historian Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s Historia de la nación chichimeca (c. 1640), the author investigates the ways in which Mesoamerican altepeme came to develop and move across both geographic and temporal borders, and how these Nahua sociopolitical systems were faithfully represented, undermined, or replaced by Spanish notions of political organization
Summary
Engaging with what Matthew Restall has called “New Philology,” Ward analyzes in Chapter 2 the ethnic nations formed in Mesoamerica up until the Spanish invasion. Making use of Nahuatl sources such as the Florentine Codex, written by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún with the assistance of his native informants from 1545 to 1590, and Spanish-language chronicles such as the Mestizo historian Diego Muñoz Camargo’s Historia de Tlaxcalteca
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