Author: Veliz, Claudio
Title: The New World of the Gothic Fox: Culture and Economy in English and Spanish America
Description: Berkeley [CA], Univ. of California Press, (1994). orig.boards. 24x15cm, xiii,254 pp. ISBN: 0520083164. Minor rubbing. VG. ¶ Contents: Prefatory Metaphors; The Invention of the Indies; The Spanish Counter-reformation; Baroque Hedgehogs; Gothic Foxes; Hellenistic Aftermath; A World Made in English; The Culture of the Latin American Economy; The Crumbling Dome ["Claudio Veliz adopts the provocative metaphor of foxes and hedgehogs that Isaiah Berlin used to describe opposite types of thinkers. Applying this metaphor to modern culture, economic systems, and the history of the New World, Veliz provides an original and lively approach to understanding the development of English and Spanish America over the past 500 years. According to Veliz, the dominant cultural achievements of Europe's English- and Spanish-speaking peoples have been the Industrial Revolution and the Counter-Reformation, respectively. These overwhelming cultural constructions have strongly influenced the subsequent historical developments of their great cultural outposts in North and South America. The British brought to the New World a stubborn ability to thrive on diversity and change that was entirely consistent with their vernacular Gothic style. The Iberians, by contrast, brought a cultural tradition shaped like a vast baroque dome, a monument to their successful attempt to arrest the changes that threatened their imperial moment. Veliz writes with erudition and wit, using a multitude of sources--historians and classical sociologists, Greek philosophers, today' s newspaper sports pages, and modern literature--to support a novel explanation of the prosperity.." - Publisher's description]

Keywords: 0520083164 New World Economic History, Latin American, North America, Spanish Colonialism, British Colonial, Economy, Culture, Comparative, Historiography