The American Indians and the Ancients of Europe: The Idea of Comparison and the Construction of Historical Time in the 18th Century

Alfonso, M. Iacono

doi:10.1515/9783110870244.658

Cited by 2 publications

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“…By the early eighteenth century, we find Lafitau (1974–1977) using the Old World to throw light on the New and vice versa. “The ancient authors have given me information on which to base happy conjectures about the Indians, [while] the Indians have given me information on the basis of which I can understand more easily and explain more readily many things in the ancient authors” (1724, quoted in Pagden 1986:200; cf Mason 1993:155; Iacono 1993; Ryan 1981).…”

Section: The Past In the Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Past Is Another Culture

Hindess

2007

Int Political Sociology

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This article addresses two questions relating to the modern Western treatment of contemporaries as belonging to the past; how has Western social thought come to treat belonging to the past as a bad thing, that is, as a kind of moral and intellectual failure; and how has it learned to assign some of our contemporaries to the world of the past. My response to the first question is in two parts. One examines the conventional modern division between past and present. The other considers the effects of Western social thought’s equally conventional developmental understanding of humanity. In the section that separates these two discussions, I suggest that the answer to the question of how have we learned to assign some of our contemporaries to the past is to be found in the early history of modern imperialism.

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Section: The Past In the Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%