ABSTRACT
The concept of empire, while suggesting a unified force, more often hides diversity and contradictions. The new ethnological discourses developed to a great extent as a response to the particular conditions of European colonialism. The chronicles of conquest must be treated as a separate group. The missionary effort in Asia, on the other hand, led to an innovative and influential ethnological discourse related to sophisticated strategies of conversion. But the Jesuits’ stance ended up being a contradictory one, because their reliance on humanistic education and intellectual flexibility had to be compatible with Counter-Reformation orthodoxy. The historical Revelation was ultimately considered more authoritative than those elements of shared understanding that could be interpreted as the manifestation of the universal ‘light’ of natural reason. The ambiguity resulted from the new status of travel literature, a genre which had actually grown and changed throughout the sixteenth century.
