European Visions

Description

John White's watercolours of the flora, fauna and North Carolina Algonquians he encountered on the expedition sent by Walter Raleigh in 1585 are some of the greatest treasures of the British Museum; engraved by Theodor de Bry in 1590 to illustrate Thomas Harriot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia , they informed and shaped Europe's view of America and its people for the next two centuries. This volume publishes a very successful interdisciplinary conference held in connection with the exhibition centred on John White, 'A New World: England's first view of America', with speakers from Europe, the USA and Britain, all of them experts in their fields. The varied and wide-ranging papers provided contextual and detailed information not covered in the exhibition catalogue and provide us with new ways of seeing and understanding both the European and Native American perspectives.

Kim Sloan is the Francis Finlay Curator of the Enlightenment Gallery and Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours before 1880 at the British Museum. She curated the exhibition 'A New World: England's first view of America' at the British Museum in 2007.

Kim Sloan is to be commended for presenting us with this myriad of perspectives, and the British Museum Press deserves credit for including many high-quality illustrations. ...this volume will provide a new platform for the study of European representations of North America.' -- Renaissance Quarterly Renaissance Quarterly