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TITLE: 2006 Jay I. Kislak Lecture: Re-thinking Conquest: Spanish and Native Experiences in the Americas:
SPEAKER: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
EVENT DATE: 11/09/2006
RUNNING TIME: 61 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
British historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto delivered the second annual Jay I. Kislak lecture titled "Re-Thinking Conquest: Spanish and Native Experiences in the Americas."
In his lecture, Fernandez-Armesto argues that Spanish empire building in the Americas was, by most standards, more dynamic and big-scale than any comparable event at the time. His recent research, especially in native-language archives and neglected Spanish sources, opens new perspectives and makes it possible to understand for the first time what the conquests really meant to those who experienced them.
The second Kislak lecture is a component of the Kislak American Studies Program established at the Library of Congress in 2004 by the Jay I. Kislak Foundation. In addition to the annual lecture series, the Kislak gift includes an important collection of books, manuscripts, historic documents, maps and art of the Americas. It contains some of the earliest records of indigenous peoples in North America, as well as superb objects from the discovery, contact and colonial periods, especially for the areas of Florida, the Caribbean and Mesoamerica.
Speaker Biography: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is the author of "Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration" (Norton). He is also the Prince of Asturias Professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts and a professorial fellow of Queen Mary and visiting professor of global environmental history at the University of London. In addition to "Pathfinders," Fernandez-Armesto has written many books, including "The World: A History, Volume II, Since 1300" (2006); "Ideas That Changed the World" (2003); "The Americas" (2003); "Food: A History" (2001); "Civilizations" (2000); and "Millennium: A History of our Last Thousand Years" (1995).