Inventing America

Spanish Historiography and the Formation of Eurocentrism
Argues that Columbus's historic act was the beginning of a process of inventing a new world in the 16th-century European consciousness. Using relevant texts, Rabasa shows how European missionaries and men of letters invented America as "the Other", whilst defining Europe as "the Self".
In Inventing America, José Rabasa presents the view that Columbus's historic act was not a discovery, and still less an encounter. Rather, he considers it the beginning of a process of inventing a New World in the sixteenth century European consciousness. The notion of America as a European invention challenges the popular conception of the New World as a natural entity to be discovered or understood, however imperfectly. This book aims to debunk complacency with the historic, geographic, and cartographic rudiments underlying our present picture of the world.