Language of the Conquerors

Serge Gruzinski is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Director of Studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris.

• IntroductionPart One: An Alphabetic UnleashingChapter I. The "Aztec" PsalterChapter II. An alphabetic unleashingChapter III. The First WavePart Two: Learning to Read, Write and SingChapter IV. The First TeachersChapter V. The First PupilsChapter VI. How the Apprenticeship Worked Chapter VII. Indigenous MusiciansPart Three: What is Latin Good For?Chapter VIII. A University for Indigenous ScholarsChapter IX. A Prodigious Education MachineChapter X. "Reverende pater, nato, cujus casus est?" The Indians' LatinPart Four: Novi homines, New MenChapter XI. Three LivesChapter XII. A Forest of Texts and ImagesChapter XIII. Humanists, Philologists, Political ActivistsChapter XIV. The Challenges of the First Globalized WorldPart Five: A Psalmody for the IndiansChapter XV. The Creators of the PsalmodyChapter XVI. The Alchemy of the PsalterEpilogue: "Dance, Dance or We Are Lost!"AcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsBibliographyNotesIndex

"Serge Gruzinski calls attention to the human consequences for indigenous peoples across the Americas of the drastic changes wrought by European languages and writing technologies. This book provides a vital twenty-first century counterpart to J. H. Elliott's The Old World and the New."Andrew Laird, Brown University, author of Aztec Latin"Rapidly mastering the languages of the conquerors brought new speakers to reinvent how and what to tell, in writing. This groundbreaking book is not just a history of hegemonic alphabetization, or of indigenous resistance to Latin and Spanish. It's a history of that active reinventing, one that becomes inspirational well beyond the early modern times."Alessandra Russo, Columbia University, author of A New Antiquity"Very readable and full of interesting material"The Prisma