Reading Packet I
Below you will find eight readings. Four of those readings offer us insight into European perspectives of their contacts with the different peoples and cultures of the world - from Columbus and Cortes in the Americas, to a Jesuit missionary in India, and a traveler in the Ottoman Empire. You will also find an Aztec account of the conquering of Mexico by Cortes, compiled, you will note, by later Spaniards in Mexico.
The final three readings are focused more narrowly upon the upheavals occurring in Europe itself, particularly the wars of religion following the Protestant Reformation, and the controversy surrounding the Scientific Revolution.
Columbus' Letter to the King and Queen of Spain, 1494: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus2.html
St. Francis Xavier, Letter from India, 1543: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1543xavier1.html
A Visit to the Wife of Suleyman the Magnificent: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1550sultanavisit.html
Aztec Account of the Conquering of Mexico: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/aztecs1.html
Hernan Cortes, Second Letter to King Charles V, 1520: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1520cortes.html
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1572stbarts.html
The Crime of Galileo, 1633:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1630galileo.html
Copernicus' Dedication to the Revolutions:
http://www.wise.virginia.edu/history/wciv2/copern.html