During the Renaissance, Europeans colonized time and space, inventing the historical eras Antiquity and the Middle Ages; mapping, appropriating, and exploiting the Americas; and establishing the idea that European modernity was the apogee of human history and the model for the world to emulate. Mignolo analyzes the “colonial logic” that has driven five hundred years… Continue reading The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options
Category: Featured Books
La Idea de América Latina
El término “Latinoamérica” sugiere que hay una América que es latina, definida por oposición a una que no lo es. En este brillante manifiesto geopolítico, Walter Mignolo retoma la idea de “latinidad” y emprende un seguimiento del concepto desde su nacimiento en una Europa en la que Francia era la potencia dominante haste la actualidad,… Continue reading La Idea de América Latina
The Idea of Latin America
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 élite of South… Continue reading The Idea of Latin America
Local Histories/Global Designs
“Walter Mignolo, one of America’s most eminent postcolonialists, presents a challenging new paradigm for understanding the realities of a planetary ‘coloniality of power,’ and the limits of area studies in the United States. Local History/Global Designs is one of the most important books in the historical humanities to have emerged since the end of the… Continue reading Local Histories/Global Designs
The Darker Side of the Renaissance
The Darker Side of the Renaissance weaves together literature, semiotics, history, historiography, cartography, and cultural theory to examine the role of language in the colonization of the New World. Exploring the many connections among writing, social organization, and political control, including how alphabetic writing is linked with the exercise of power, Walter D. Mignolo claims… Continue reading The Darker Side of the Renaissance
Writing Without Words
“Definitions of writing for the Old World are often a bad fit when applied to te recording and mnemonic systems of the Americas. This is a major point emerging from Writing without Words, a collection that balances theoretical expositions with analyses of particular exemplars. . . .Writing without Words is well-organized and original. It will… Continue reading Writing Without Words