The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana

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Sir Walter Ralegh's narrative of his expedition to South America is a fundamental source for the historical anthropology of the Americas. Yet readers must question how Ralegh, the quintessential Elizabethan, garnered his information, and how we should interpret it. In this new edition based on the first printing of the Discoverie in 1596, anthropologist Neil L. Whitehead addresses problems at the heart of current anthropological and literary criticism, and he challenges existing evaluations both of Ralegh and of early travel accounts generally. Whitehead has travelled where Ralegh led his expedition along the Orinoco in quest of an indigenous 'empire' in the highlands of Guiana. He draws on his own observations of the region as well as the available sources, including valuable Spanish and Venezuelan texts, to illuminate Ralegh's military engagements with the Spaniards, diplomacy with native 'kings', enigmatic encounters with monsters, and the search for gold (which continues today).