Raphael

1894 · réf. 22738 — 1894. Mexico Anthropology Delorme Salto Rafael. Los aborígenes de América: disquisiciones acerca del asiento origen historia y adelanto en la esfera científica de las sociedades precolombinas. Madrid: Librería de Fernando Fé / Habana: La Propaganda Literaria 1894. First edition. With a prologue by General D. Vicente Riva-Palacio y Guerrero Mexican Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain. 8vo. Finely bound in later full red morocco with gilt rules and spine lettering marbled endpapers all edges gilt. Text in Spanish. A scarce anthropological treatise exploring pre-Columbian civilization through the lens of 19th-century scientific humanism authored by Spanish scholar Rafael Delorme Salto. Los aborígenes de América situates Indigenous American societies within a framework of comparative anthropology and early evolutionary theory attempting to reconcile European Enlightenment models of progress with Mesoamerican and Andean achievements in astronomy architecture and mathematics. Delorme writes admiringly of the "inteligencia" and "fuerza reflexiva" of early American peoples treating the Americas not as derivative cultures but as civilizations of independent scientific advancement. The work's prologue by Vicente Riva-Palacio a liberal general novelist and diplomat associated with Mexican nation-building intellectuals frames the book within transatlantic dialogue on indigeneity and modernity offering rare evidence of late 19th-century Spanish and Mexican collaboration in re-evaluating the legacies of conquest and colonial knowledge. Mild toning to some pages a 2" loss to the introduction page and mild foxing to margins else clean and tightly bound. Overall very good condition. A rare volume highlighting the intersection of Iberian anthropology and Mexican nationalism in the intellectual reappraisal of Indigenous America at the close of the 19th century. unknown