The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative EthnologyThis book gives a new interpretation of the reception of the new world by the old. It is the first in depth study of the pre Enlightenment methods by which Europeans attempted to describe and classify the American Indian and his society. Between 1512 and 1724 a simple determinist view of human society was replaced by a more sophisticated relativist approach. Anthony Pagden uses new methods of technical analysis, already developed in philosophy and