This book presents two case studies which represent two distinct types of imagining by two diametrically different groups - 1) literate and in some cases erudite Europeans, 2) a vanquished native nobility.
The first endeavoured to make sense of Spain's (and Portugal's) 'marvelous possesions' in the New World with the limited conceptual tools at their disposal, whilst the second sought to construct a colonial identity based on their shared ancestral memory, while incoporating elements from the even more woundrous Hispanic culture that had overwhelmed them.