Modernity and Its Other: The Encounter with North American Indians in the Eighteenth Century

In Modernity and Its Other Robert Woods Sayre examines eighteenth-century North America through discussion of texts drawn from the period. He focuses on this unique historical moment when early capitalist civilization (modernity) in colonial societies, especially the British, interacted closely with Indigenous communities (the “Other”) before the balance of power shifted definitively toward the colonizers.

Sayre considers a variety of French perspectives as a counterpoint to the Anglo-Ameri...