Transatlantic Topographies

Explores the construction of the Americas by and through European eyes

Transatlantic Topographies was first published in 2004. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.



Transatlantic Topographies studies the representation of American space during the initial confrontation between Europeans and Amerindians and during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

Starting from topographical descriptions of land, islands, highlands, and jungles, Ileana Rodríguez shows how existing systems of knowledge broke down with the discovery of the Americas and had to be reinvented through the interpretation of signs, the accumulation of evidence, material exchange, and, finally, through the learning, teaching, and “kidnapping” of language. Proceeding from the period of exploration to the modern creation of a “twentieth-century frontier,” Rodríguez charts the path that led from island paradise to jungle chaos, from representations of natural beauty to the racialization of the islands.

Drawing attention to cross-cultural miscommunication and the riddles of meaning and message it produces, Transatlantic Topographies develops a highly nuanced understanding of the evolving forces of imperialism as they gave way to postcolonialism and then to transnationalism—and newly re-inscribed notions of imperial economic practices.