Why read Marvelous Possessions?

Book cover of Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World

Book description

A masterwork of history and cultural studies, Marvelous Possessions is a brilliant meditation on the interconnected ways in which Europeans of the Age of Discovery represented non-European peoples and took possession of their lands, particularly in the New World. In a series of innovative readings of travel narratives, judicial documents,…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Marvelous Possessions as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Andrew Hadfield

Author

This book contains a series of inspired readings that show how the newly discovered American continent transformed English/European notions of what it was to be human in an age dominated by religion.

The peoples found in America generated fear, hatred, confusion, but, most of all, wonder at the possibilities of human life, challenging the ways in which Europeans had habitually thought.

From Andrew's list on early English travel writing.