Moorings: Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780816648337)

How Africa was perceived in the early modern imaginary

In this first book to study Portuguese texts about Africa, Moorings brings an important but little-known body of European writings to bear on contemporary colonial thought. Images of Africa as monstrous, dangerous, and lush were created in early Portuguese imperial writings and dominated its representation in European literature. Moorings establishes these key works in their proper place: foundational to Western imperial discourse.

Attentive to history as well as the nuances of language, Josiah Blackmore leads readers from the formation of the "Moor" in medieval Iberia to the construction of a full colonial imaginary, as found in the works of two writers: the royal chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara and the epic poet Luís de Camões. Blackmore's original work helps to explain how concepts and myths--such as the "otherness" of Africa and Africans--originated, functioned, and were perpetuated.

Delving into the Portuguese imperial experience, Moorings enriches our understanding of historical and literary imagination during a significant period of Western expansion.

Author: Josiah Blackmore
ISBN-10: 0816648336
ISBN-13: 9780816648337
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Language: English
Published: 12/01/2008
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 01/23/2009 pg. 19
Choice 08/01/2009
Reference and Research Bk News 05/01/2009 pg. 51