Search results for ""author anthony pagden""

Today, the majority of the peoples of the planet live in nation-states, based upon the idea, if never the reality, of a single people, a single culture, a single rule of law and a single source of sovereign authority. But will they continue to do so in the future? None of the major challenges that confront humanity today from climate change to disease, from terrorism to mass migration can be handled effectively by single nation-states, no matter how powerful. The world is no longer made up only of states but also of an ever-increasing multitude of interstate networks and organizations which recognize no borders. We are beginning to be able to imagine the very real possibility of a new global civil society. But what political form should this take? By examining the history of the evolution of human society from the world's first empires to today's world of interstate networks, this book argues that there now exists the possibility of the emergence of a new political f

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Today, the majority of the peoples of the planet live in nation-states, based upon the idea, if never the reality, of a single people, a single culture, a single rule of law and a single source of sovereign authority. But will they continue to do so in the future? None of the major challenges that confront humanity today from climate change to disease, from terrorism to mass migration can be handled effectively by single nation-states, no matter how powerful. The world is no longer made up only of states but also of an ever-increasing multitude of interstate networks and organizations which recognize no borders. We are beginning to be able to imagine the very real possibility of a new global civil society. But what political form should this take? By examining the history of the evolution of human society from the world's first empires to today's world of interstate networks, this book argues that there now exists the possibility of the emergence of a new political f

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Lo que va a encontrarse el lector en las páginas de este libro es un análisis de los orígenes y persistencia de la leyenda negra y una reflexión sobre su impacto y las reacciones que provoca. No hemos pretendido ser exhaustivos ni pasar revista a todos y cada uno de los autores y de los textos, folletos, imágenes, canciones, etcétera, que la alimentan porque el objetivo de este volumen es otro; nace de una pregunta: por qué la leyenda negra se recrudece precisamente en el siglo XVIII cuando reina en España un rey ilustrado, Carlos III, asesorado por ministros ilustrados que llevan a cabo una política igualmente ilustrada? La segunda parte de esta obra trata de contestar a este interrogante, desde sensibilidades diferentes y desde puntos de vista a veces contrarios, y de explicar cuál fue la respuesta de los políticos e intelectuales españoles a eso que algunos de los autores (no todos) insistimos en llamar " leyenda negra " .

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Hernán Cortés’s Cartas de Relacíon, written over a seven-year period to Charles V of Spain, provide an extraordinary narrative account of the conquest of Mexico from the founding of the coastal town of Veracruz until Cortés’s journey to Honduras in 1525. Pagden’s English translation has been prepared from a close examination of the earliest surviving manuscript and of the first printed editions, and he also provides a new introduction offering a bold and innovative interpretation of the nature of the conquest and Cortes’s involvement in it. J. H. Elliot’s introductory essay explains Cortes’s conflicts with the Crown and with Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba.“The definitive edition [of the letters] in any language. . . . The book is a ’must’ for all those who are seriously interested in this traumatic clash of civilizations and the consequences, both for good and ill, which ensued.”—C. R. Boxer, English Historical Review“One of the most fascinating Machiavellian documents to come out of the Renaissance.”—Carlos Fuentes, Guardian “[Pagden] provides us with two important innovations: the first reliable edition of the most important Spanish text . . . and annotations that draw on Pagden’s own profound knowledge of Mesoamerican cultures.”—Helen Nader, Sixteenth Century Journal

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Bartolomé de Las Casas was the first and fiercest critic of Spanish colonialism in the New World. An early traveller to the Americas who sailed on one of Columbus's voyages, Las Casas was so horrified by the wholesale massacre he witnessed that he dedicated his life to protecting the Indian community. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1542, a shocking catalogue of mass slaughter, torture and slavery, which showed that the evangelizing vision of Columbus had descended under later conquistadors into genocide. Dedicated to Philip II to alert the Castilian Crown to these atrocities and demand that the Indians be entitled to the basic rights of humankind, this passionate work of documentary vividness outraged Europe and contributed to the idea of the Spanish 'Black Legend' that would last for centuries.

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