The Return of Hans Staden by Eve M Duffy

The Return of Hans Staden by Eve M Duffy

Hans Staden's sixteenth-century account of shipwreck and captivity by the Tupinamba Indians of Brazil was an early modern bestseller. This retelling of the German sailor's eyewitness account known as The True History shows both why it was so popular at the time and why it remains an important tool for understanding the opening of the Atlantic world. Eve M. Duffy and Alida C. Metcalf carefully reconstruct Staden's life as a German soldier, his two expeditions to the Americas, and his subsequent shipwreck, captivity, brush with cannibalism, escape, and return. The authors explore how these events and experiences were recreated in the text and images of The True History. Focusing on Staden's multiple roles as a go-between, Duffy and Metcalf address many of the issues that emerge when cultures come into contact and conflict. An artful and accessible interpretation, The Return of Hans Staden takes a text best known for its sensational tale of cannibalism and shows how it can be reinterpreted as a window into the precariousness of lives on both sides of early modern encounters, when such issues as truth and lying, violence, religious belief, and cultural difference were key to the formation of the Atlantic world.

This work has a broad appeal and should be of immediate interest to a wide variety of scholars and studentsOne of its best features is that it is readable while also very scholarly... This enjoyable text could be used very successfully with graduate students or undergraduates in an upper-division class. -- Timothy J. Coates The Americas The Return of Hans Staden is a useful book for students, a good way to acquire a first acquaintance with the worlds of a sixteenth-century Landsknecht and German conquistador on both side of the Atlantic. -- Bernd J.W. Ludke German History Elegant... intriguing. -- Mary Lindemann The Coordinating Council for Women in History Scholars of early images of the Americas and of cultural encounters, captivity, and oceanic expansion will find the material engaging. -- Surekha Davies William and Mary Quarterly

Eve M. Duffy is the director of the Program in the Humanities and Human Values at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Alida C. Metcalf is the Harris Masterson, Jr. Professor of History at Rice University and the author of Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil, 1500-1600.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781421403465
ISBN 10	1421403463
Title	The Return of Hans Staden
Author	Eve M Duffy
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Johns Hopkins University Press
Year published	2012-02-29
Number of pages	216
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.