Publisher's Synopsis
This anthropological essay unravels the mystery behind the myth of the European savage. Analyzing diverse phenomena spanning through a wide period of time, like the iconographic representations and the literary expressions of the Middle Ages, and the homo sylvestris imported by the Spanish to the colonized lands, Bartra develops the theory that for every piece of cultural and political progress in the West, and for every milestone in European society, there is the image of a savage counterpointing the borders of civility, and shaping the identity of modern European men.
