This writing assignment is a 3-4 page book review for my HIS320W class, Thinking Like a Historian.
This is liek a summary of my class: The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed unprecedented encounters and clashes between peoples of different cultural backgrounds—from Columbus's first landings in the Caribbean to the infamous meetings between Cortés and Moctezuma or Pizarro and Atahualpa. Through transatlantic voyages, peoples, plants, animals, pathogens, ideas, and goods moved across the globe, sparking an era of profound global transformation marked by violence, epidemics, and shifting power relations. This course introduces students to the challenges historians face when studying these asymmetric intercultural encounters. We will explore three key questions: What sources, methods, and interpretations do historians use to study encounters between Indigenous peoples and Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? What major debates and disagreements shape historical conversations about these interactions? How can we use available documents to craft historical narratives that transcend the limitations of colonial archives?
The course consists of two modules. The first explores initial encounters between Indigenous peoples and Europeans through both scholarly works and primary sources (including written texts, maps, and images) from the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru. The second module examines the New Kingdom of Granada in the sixteenth century, focusing on how Indigenous authority transformed under Spanish rule. For this section, we will analyze sixteenth-century court cases that Prof. Juan Cobo (University of California Santa Barbara) and I have transcribed and translated from the archives.
ASSIGNMENT:
Good scholarly reviews provide nuanced assessments of scholarship's contributions and limitations. They clearly present the authors' arguments, methods, and sources, along with main takeaways, before offering critical reflections and raising thoughtful questions. For this assignment, review one book. The essay should comprehensively examine all important aspects of the scholarly sources reviewed,accurately describing its arguments, sources and methods, and contributions to historiography.You can choose one of the following books.
• Cobo Betancourt, Juan F. The Coming of the Kingdom: The Muisca, Catholic Reform, and Spanish Colonialism in the New Kingdom of Granada. Cambridge Latin American Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. • Deardorff, Max. A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668. Cambridge Latin American Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. • Santiago Muñoz-Arbeláez, The New Kingdom of Granada: The Making and Unmaking of Spain’s Atlantic Empire. Durham: Duke University Press, 2025.
Choose one of the books and read it carefully. Describe in your own words the book’s central argument, how it contributes to historiography, and its sources and methodology. Synthetically describe the book structure. Finally, provide your own critical analysis of the book’s merits and limitations.
Questions
- Suggested length: 3-4 pages
- Suggested spacing: single-spaced
- Suggested font: Times New Roman
- Suggested font size:
- 1. Provide adequate citations using the Chicago Manual of Style and Foot Notes