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Undoing Empire Race and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean José F. Buscaglia-Salgado |
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$70.50 Cloth |
A revelatory account that places mulatto experience at the center of Caribbean history. This ambitious book brings to light the story of what José F. Buscaglia-Salgado terms mulataje-the ways Caribbean aesthetics offer the possibility of the ultimate erasure of racial difference. Undoing Empire gives a broad panorama stretching from the complex politics of medieval Iberian societies to the beginning of direct U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean at the end of the nineteenth century. Buscaglia-Salgado begins with an examination of Washington Irving's "American Columbiad" as an act of historical and territorial plundering. He then traces the roots of mulatto society to the pre-1492 Iberian world, not only finding a connection between the Moors of "Old Spain" and the morenos-the blacks and mulattos of the New World-but also offering a profound critique of creole and imperial discourses. Buscaglia-Salgado reads the pursuit and contestation of what he terms the European Ideal in colonial texts, architecture, and paintings; then identifies the mulatto movement of "undoing" the Ideal in the wars that shook the nineteenth-century Caribbean from Haiti to Cuba, arguing that certain projects of national liberation have moved contrary to the historical claims to freedom in the mulatto world. “Undoing Empire is impressive for its breadth and depth, and for how the author draws together over five hundred years of history. The book makes a significant contribution to postcolonial studies of race, culture, and nation in the Americas.”—Hispanic Journal “Undoing Empire provides a wide historical and cultural survey of the Spanish reconquista, discovery and colonization of the Americas. An outstanding and crucial contribution to the field of Caribbean studies from a deep cultural studies perspective. This opera prima reflects Buscaglia-Salgado’s deep understanding of Carribbean cultural and historical processes. Undoubtedly, it is a book that will have a great impact and stimulate debates and dialogues amid Caribbean scholars for years to come.” —The Americas “Tracing the movement of Caribbean aesthetics.” —American Historical Review José F. Buscaglia-Salgado is assistant professor of modern languages and comparative literature and director of Cuban and Caribbean Programs at the University at Buffalo. 336 pages | 27 halftones | 5 7/8 x 9 | 2003 |
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