Diego Rivera "Pan-American Unity"

Feb 22, 2012

"The Americas" by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto


·        1) “America is a term even elastic enough to extend beyond America, as ordinarily understood, into or across the Atlantic and pacific” (14). According to F. Fernandez-A. Why is America so hard to define?

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         2) As Fernandez describes how America is a mixture of cultures and more, how does that change the way in which you look at America today?



·         3)  “The Old World heartlands from which it was transposed were tiny comparison marginal cattle-rearing lands in Extremadura and shepherders’ narrow routes of transhumance, which crossed Castile. In the New World, ranching came to fill huge tracks of prairie, pampa, and sertao. “Before the inruptions of European colonialism it was an almost unknown way of life” (89). What are your thoughts about the New and the Old World, looking at the information provided by Fernandez?

2 comments:

  1. Before i came to United States, i always though of it as "America". To me, U.S. will still be America, the place where freedom and dreams come true. After reading Fernandez's book, i have come to realize "America" is just an imaginary name that has pulled those outside of it, like my family and i to come and get those great things we couldn't get at our home country. Even-though Fernandez mentioned "America" is a mixture of cultures and political ideas, it does not change the way in which i view America today.

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  2. America has always been a place of multiple cultures and political organization. Different Native American tribes had different political structures and cultures with some being more transient and others that created settlements up in the North Pacific region. This has continued through to today so it is hard to say if this changes the way I look at America because I believe it has always been like this. Also, in regards to the ranching taking hold in the New World, I believe is has to do with two things: the first one is that the natives of this hemisphere had few animals that could be domesticated (I think the only two they had were llamas and dogs,) and second, I think it became such a major industry because there were large tracks of land with little economic importance to the colonizers in terms of raw material that could be exploited and because of the make of that land, and the introduction of cattle in a land that they could flourish, ranching took hold as a major industry in the Americas, and an industry that remains very strong and politically powerful.

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