Tensions of Modernity

"Daniel Brunstetter’s book examines a profound and problematic theoretical divide in early writings about the Native American "Other" that directly shaped debates about the status of indigenous peoples well into the Enlightenment. Brunstetter thereby reveals how early modern thought framed later discussion in ways that challenge some of the most enduring conceits of modernity. Tensions of Modernity represents a novel and stimulating approach to problems of continuing importance for understanding Western conceptions of Otherness. The book is sure to find a wide and enthusiastic readership among political theorists, historians, anthropologists, philosophers and cultural theorists, including not only advanced scholars but also graduate and undergraduate students."

—Cary J. Nederman, Texas A&M University

"For half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest to the Gulf War, the West has been faced with "Others" conceived of variously as inhuman beasts, savages, barbarians, or, at best, humans equal-but-still-somehow-unequal. What Daniel Brunstetter shows in this darkly enlightening text is the extent to which even supposed Western heroes of toleration, anti-racism, and multiculturalism, like Las Casas and Vitoria, ultimately endorsed a Euro-normative hierarchy of Christian values, rights, and personhood. In the end, the brutal choice has too often come down to "Assimilate or die" (physical genocide) or "Assimilate and die" (cultural genocide). The historic lessons for today’s crusades, both external and internal, are—or should be—all too painfully clear."

—Charles Mills, Northwestern University