Imperial Eyes

Mary Louise Pratt is Silver Professor of Spanish and Portuguese languages and literatures at New York University, and formerly Olive H. Palmer Professor of Humanities at Stanford University. She has published widely in the areas of Latin American literature and society, comparative literature, gender studies, and the cultural study of colonialism and imperialism. She was president of the Modern Language Association in 2003

"Imperial Eyes is a seminal work in the study of travel writing, demonstrating an inventive use of canonical and non-canonical sources from the archive of European travel writing, and from the colonial 'contact zone.' Its critical insights are drawn eclectically from discourse analysis, gender criticism, postcolonialism, anthropology, and literary theory, drawn together with unflagging political energy. It remains a model of its kind."- Nigel Leask, Glasgow University, UKPraise for 1st edition:"[an] incisive and far-reaching study ... Pratt writes with clarity, passion and a lively wit." - The Times Literary Supplement"an engaging and exciting book." - Research in African Literatures"a fascinating book ... thoroughly, even excitingly, readable." - Asahi Evening News"[a] compelling account." - Society and Space

• 1st edition contents List of Illustrations Preface Introduction: Criticism in the contact zone Part I Science and sentiment, 1750-1800 Science, planetary consciousness, interiors Narrating the anti-conquest Anti-conquest II: The mystique of reciprocity Eros and Abolition Part II The reinvention of América, 1800-50 Alexander von Humboldt and the reinvention of América Reinventing América II: The capitalist vanguard and the exploratrices sociales Reinventing América/Reinventing Europe: Creole self-fashioning Part III Imperial Stylistics, 1860-1980 From the Victoria N’yanza to the Sheraton San Salvador Notes Index