The Loss of El Dorado: A Colonial History
by V. S. Naipaul
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The history of Trinidad begins with a delusion: the belief that somewhere nearby on the South American mainland lay El Dorado, the mythical kingdom of gold. In this extraordinary and often gripping book, V. S. Naipaul–himself a native of Trinidad–shows how that delusion drew a small island into the vortex of world events, making it the object of Spanish and English colonial designs and a mecca for treasure-seekers, slave-traders, and revolutionaries. Amid massacres and poisonings, show more plunder and multinational intrigue, two themes emerge: the grinding down of the Aborigines during the long rivalries of the El Dorado quest and, two hundred years later, the man-made horror of slavery. An accumulation of casual, awful detail takes us as close as we can get to day-to-day life in the slave colony, where, in spite of various titles of nobility, only an opportunistic, near-lawless community exists, always fearful of slave suicide or poison, of African sorcery and revolt. Naipaul tells this labyrinthine story with assurance, withering irony, and lively sympathy. The result is historical writing at its highest level. show lessTags
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A highly detailed and dramatic history of Trinidad and Venezuela from the beginnings of European colonialism through the dynamics of the era of slavery, and finishing with the drab ending that abolition brought. Naipaul illuminates the horrors and every-day brutality of slave life but also shows the absurd convolutions denial of the same brought to this Caribbean society and frequently transmitted back to the colonial nations.
An very interesting account of the history of Trinidad starting with it's conquest by the Spanish who thought it to be the land of El Dorado. One wonders what course the history of Latin America would have taken had the moors not left Spain. Obviously not having learnt their lessons as the colonized, they decided to be twice as harsh as colonizers, imposing a very harsh slavery influenced pecking order. International bandits like Pizarro, cortez and their equally vile english counterpart Walter Raleigh paved the way for the colonization, subjugation and ultimately the demise of entire races.
An very interesting account of the history of Trinidad starting with it's conquest by the Spanish who thought it to be the land of El Dorado. One wonders what course the history of Latin America would have taken had the moors not left Spain. Obviously not having learnt their lessons as the colonized, they decided to be twice as harsh as colonizers, imposing a very harsh slavery influenced pecking order. International bandits like Pizarro, cortez and their equally vile english counterpart Walter Raleigh paved the way for the colonization, subjugation and ultimately the demise of entire races.
really spooky... dense
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Author Information
96+ Works 25,702 Members
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born of Indian ancestry in Chaguanas, Trinidad on August 17, 1932. He was educated at University College, Oxford and lived in Great Britain since 1950. From 1954 to 1956, he edited a radio program on literature for the British Broadcasting Corporation's Caribbean Service. His first novel, The Mystic Masseur, was show more published in 1957. His other novels included A House for Mr. Biswas, A Bend in the River, Guerrillas, and Half a Life. In a Free State won the Booker Prize in 1971. He started writing nonfiction in the 1960s. His first nonfiction book, The Middle Passage, was published in 1962. His other nonfiction works included An Area of Darkness, Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, and A Turn in the South. He was knighted in 1990 and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He died on August 11, 2018 at the age of 85. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Belongs to Publisher Series
List Taschenbuch (60358)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Het verlies van Eldorado
- Original title
- The Loss of Eldorado. A History
- Original publication date
- 1984
- Important places
- Caribbean Region; Trinidad; Venezuela
- First words
- My ancestors began to go from India to Trinidad about a hundred years ago. (foreword)
This book is made up of two forgotten stories. (prologue)
The dispossessed conquistador was Antonio de Berrio. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)On both sides of the Gulf the Spanish Empire, after three hundred years, had inheritors.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It was never known whether he had poisoned himself. (epilogue) - Original language*
- Engels
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 972.983 — History & geography History of North America Mexico, Central America, West Indies, Bermuda West Indies (Antilles) and Bermuda; Caribbean Windward Islands and other southern islands Trinidad and Tobago
- LCC
- F2120 .N3 — Local History of the United States, Canada and Latin America Latin America. Spanish America Lesser Antilles Individual islands
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 427
- Popularity
- 71,337
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.26)
- Languages
- 7 — Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 21
- ASINs
- 12
