El. knyga: Cotton Mather's Spanish Lessons: A Story of Language, Race, and Belonging in the Early Americas

In her revolutionary new book,Gruesz sets aside Mather the witch hunter to center him instead in a fascinating new story about raceIt is Grueszs thrillingly literary focus on a single textspinning out as much significance as she has convincingly shown it deservesthat makes her new consideration of him so rewarding. -- Joseph Rezek * Los Angeles Review of Books * A fascinating expedition into matters of race, language, and religionThat Gruesz can so convincingly link the miniscule actions of a late seventeenth-century printer in Boston with the huge contemporary issue of ethno-racial ambiguity in the US indicates the range and ambition of her book, fully achieved. -- Peter Hulme * American Literary History * As [ Gruesz] revisits the life and writings of Mather especially as connected to his La Fe del Christiano, she illustrates that his significance went well beyond the basic religious world of New England, entangling him in the broader, imperial context of the early modern world. -- Richard Bailey * H-Net Reviews * A new narrative about race and ideas, as well as practices, of belonging, with deep and explicit implications for Latina/o/x history todayGrueszs ambitious and innovative bookboth a macro history of language, ideas, and circulation and a micro history of Mather, his household, and his interactions with Native and Black peopleshould be widely read. -- Alejandra Dubcovsky * New England Quarterly * ExtraordinaryIn many ways [ Gruesz] expands what the biography of a text can achieve and shows how many aims it can encompassEvery early Americanist, from any discipline, should certainly read the introduction. Most should read the book in full. All will find insightful material to spur further studies. [ This book] contains important lessons for us all. -- Abram Van Engen * William & Mary Quarterly * Immersive and eye-openingMeticulously researched and elegantly written, this is an essential reconsideration of the historical and contemporary place of the Spanish language and Brown identity in the U.S. * Publishers Weekly * One of the most exciting and illuminating books I have read this century. Just when our nations institutions of historical memory are being called to account for their role in constructing entrenched systems of racialization, Gruesz reminds us that the political status of Latinx people in the United States remains profoundly unclear. Brilliantly combining historical, archival, and literary work, this book shows her to be a singular figure in American Studies today. -- Ramón Saldķvar, author of The Borderlands of Culture A stunningly researched and original take on Cotton Mather. Kirsten Silva Gruesz replaces entrenched US origins stories with a transformative account of labor, race, and nation. In so doing, she locates English-speaking America in a series of richly hemispheric new contexts. -- Sarah Rivett, author of Unscripted America Kirsten Silva Gruesz has produced a magisterial study that fundamentally reimagines the complex relationship between colonial British North America and colonial Spanish America. Coupling extensive archival research with sensitive readings of multilingual texts, she traces not only the dialogue among criollo elites throughout the Americas, but also the deep imprints of Indigenous and African peoples on linguistic, religious, and material practices that continue to bear on our own lives today. -- John Morįn Gonzįlez, author of Border Renaissance A brilliant, essential, and moving book. In Cotton Mathers Spanish Lessons, Kirsten Silva Gruesz offers her own enduring lessons on language, translation, and latinidad for a new generation of Americanists. -- Anna Brickhouse, author of The Unsettlement of America This dazzling book does so much at once. By humanizing the oft-maligned Cotton Mather, it restores the complexity of an important thinker, wrestling with global events at a pivotal moment for Americas identity and his own. In so doing, it also situates New England in a much wider Atlantic world filled with people speaking Spanish and many other languages. Cotton Mathers Spanish Lessons deepens our history in every imaginable way. -- Ted Widmer, author of Lincoln on the Verge