Why read The Body of the Conquistador?

Book cover of The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492–1700

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.…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Body of the Conquistador as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Deborah Toner

Author

As an undergraduate student I was lucky enough to take Professor Earle’s class on the history of food in Latin America and this book encapsulates the expansive outlook and conceptual complexity that made that class so mind-bogglingly brilliant and enjoyable. By examining the systems of thought through which European colonizers and Indigenous peoples of the Americas understood different foods, ways of cooking and eating, and the influence of diet on people’s bodies, The Body of the Conquistador helped me to think about the axiom “you are what you eat” in a whole new way.

From Deborah's list on The best books on the history of food in Latin America.