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The loss of El Dorado a colonial history

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, 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. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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  • "The loss of El Dorado"@it
  • "Loss of El Dorado"@pl

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description

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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 and winner of the Noble Prize in Literature, 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, 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. Focuses on the two widely separated historical situations--ill-fated attempts to exploit the island nation of Trinidad by the Spanish in the sixteenth century and the British in the eighteenth century--that called worldwide attention to the obscure island of Trinidad."
  • "Une peinture précise et vivante alliée à une analyse historique rigoureuse de la terre natale de l'auteur, l'île de Trinidad (Trinité-et-Tobago)."
  • "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, 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. From the Trade Paperback edition."@en
  • "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. Naipaulhimself a native of Trinidadshows 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, 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. Focuses on the two widely separated historical situations--ill-fated attempts to exploit the island nation of Trinidad by the Spanish in the sixteenth century and the British in the eighteenth century--that called worldwide attention to the obscure island of Trinidad."

genre

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  • "History"
  • "History"@en
  • "Livres électroniques"
  • "Electronic books"@en
  • "Powieść angielska"@pl

name

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  • "Det förlorade El Dorado"@sv
  • "Det förlorade El Dorado"
  • "The Loss of El Dorado : A Colonial History"
  • "The loss of El Dorado a colonial history"@en
  • "The loss of El Dorado a colonial history"
  • "Utrata El Dorado : historia kolonialna"@pl
  • "La perdita dell'Eldorado : una cronaca coloniale"
  • "The loss of el dorado"@en
  • "The loss of El Dorado : a colonial history"
  • "The loss of El Dorado : a colonial history"@en
  • "La perdita dell'Eldorado una cronaca coloniale"@it
  • "Abschied von Eldorado eine Kolonialgeschichte"
  • "Utrata El Dorado. Tłumaczyła Maria Zborowska"
  • "La perte de l'Eldorado : une histoire"
  • "Utrata El Dorado"@pl
  • "Utrata el dorado : historia kolonialna"
  • "Abschied von Eldorado : eine Kolonialgeschichte"
  • "The loss of El Dorado"
  • "The loss of El Dorado"@en

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