The Spanish translation of Antonello Gerbi’s La disputa del Nuovo Mondo (1955) prepared for the Fondo de Cultura Económica, made this seminal Italian study of the transatlantic debates about the indigenous peoples and nature of the Americas accessible to an international audience. Henceforth, Gerbi’s work came to serve as a fundamental reference book on American studies. Despite its success, the reasons that inspired Gerbi’s interest in the Americas have never been examined with an eye for his biography, the historiography of American studies, and global history. This essay reconstructs the historical context in which Gerbi developed his magnum opus while combining an analysis of Gerbi’s papers and scholarly methods with a reconstruction of his professional and intellectual relationships. It also draws on information gleaned from extensive interviews with Gerbi's son as well as the relatives of his friends. With the help of these various research methods and sources, it introduces the reader to the circumstances and reasons that led Antonello Gerbi (1904-1976) to redirect his interests towards the history of the Americas and their cultural relations with Europe during his decade-long exile in Peru as a victim of Mussolini’s racial laws.

Antonello Gerbi’s Discovery of the New World : Life Experience and the Practice of History (1938-1948) / M.M.L. Benzoni - In: Global Perspectives in Modern Italian Culture : Knowledge and Representation of the World in Italy from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century / [a cura di] G. Abbattista. - Prima edizione. - [s.l] : Routledge, 2021. - ISBN 9780367467920. - pp. 282-305 [10.4324/9781003031093-15]

Antonello Gerbi’s Discovery of the New World : Life Experience and the Practice of History (1938-1948)

M.M.L. Benzoni
2021

Abstract

The Spanish translation of Antonello Gerbi’s La disputa del Nuovo Mondo (1955) prepared for the Fondo de Cultura Económica, made this seminal Italian study of the transatlantic debates about the indigenous peoples and nature of the Americas accessible to an international audience. Henceforth, Gerbi’s work came to serve as a fundamental reference book on American studies. Despite its success, the reasons that inspired Gerbi’s interest in the Americas have never been examined with an eye for his biography, the historiography of American studies, and global history. This essay reconstructs the historical context in which Gerbi developed his magnum opus while combining an analysis of Gerbi’s papers and scholarly methods with a reconstruction of his professional and intellectual relationships. It also draws on information gleaned from extensive interviews with Gerbi's son as well as the relatives of his friends. With the help of these various research methods and sources, it introduces the reader to the circumstances and reasons that led Antonello Gerbi (1904-1976) to redirect his interests towards the history of the Americas and their cultural relations with Europe during his decade-long exile in Peru as a victim of Mussolini’s racial laws.
Antonello Gerbi, Edmundo O'Gorman; Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés; Global History; History of the Americas; History of Peru; Historiography; Italian Racial Laws; The Dispute of the New World
Settore M-STO/02 - Storia Moderna
2021
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/870255
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