Barbara Fuchs. Mimesis and Empire. The New World, Islam, and European Identities.

Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xvi + 211 pp. index, bibl. 37.50 [pounds sterling]. ISBN: 0-521-80102-8.

In her exploration of empire in Spain, England, and the New World, Barbara Fuchs provides her readers with a thought-provoking study of the dynamics of cultural mimesis. Aware of the perilously unstable nature of imperial identity, she focuses on a series of very revealing mimetic transactions. Highlighting the complexities of mimesis, for example, Professor Fuchs opens her book by recalling an intriguing account of a pageant that took place in Cuzco in 1570 to honor the Viceroy of Peru, where on a site that used to be reserved for Inca festivals, Indians are now seen playing the role of Moors. In her characteristically interrogatory style, Fuchs contemplates the meaning of this racially fraught role-playing, whereby Indians (by the year 1570, no doubt baptized Christians) figure the infidel: "If the Indians can represent the Muslims, have the Spaniards in fact succeeded in their evangelical mission? If, on the other hand, they cannot, then at whom is the violence of the Spanish conquest aimed, and why? Perhaps the 'infidel' Indians are simply standing in for their unbaptized brethren, or perhaps their very participation in the Spanish performance marks the success of the Conquista" (1). A mock water-combat staged in Bristol in 1613 for Queen Anne pits Turks against Christians in a way that figures the fragile nature of English identity, and the state-sanctioned piracy and the real dangers of renegade corsairs.

Cultural mimesis is clearly a dangerous prospect given that it can easily become subversive in ways that irreparably undermine the authority of empire. Acknowledging the influential formulations of difference posited by Saussure and Derrida in linguistic terms, and by Lacan, Foucault, and postcolonial theorizers of the marginalized other, Fuchs emphasizes instead the need for a serious consideration of sameness (in the sense of "subversive mimicry"). Fuchs' study makes clear the fact that sameness and difference are, in fact, two inextricably linked cultural agendas, and that subversive mimicry, as Mimesis and Empire eloquently attests, is a constant of imperial existence. In order to define cultural mimesis on her own terms, not as reverential, celebratory representation, but as "the fun house mirror, the reflection that dazzles, the impersonator, the sneaky copy, the double-agent" (5), Fuchs shows instead the pertinence of Michael Taussig's notion of mimesis as a powerful weapon by which the colonial experience can be undermined, applying it to the case of Spain and England and their imperial pursuits.

The textual clusters offered in Mimesis and Empire present a carefully chosen group of examples. Such texts as Ercilla's Araucana is paired for discussion with Perez de Hita's Guerras civiles de Granada, as are the Inca Garcilaso's Comentarios reales with Guaman Poma de Ayala's Nueva coronica I buen gobierno, and from England, Heywood and Rowley's Fortune by Land and Sea and Massinger's The Renegado.

The first aspect of cultural mimesis addressed by this study is the always challenging relationship of literature to society--the inherent dangers of fiction and also their potential contamination of reader-response in the context of religious texts. This perennial concern with the dangers of imaginative fiction obsessively thematized in the Old World became increasingly worrisome in the New with regard to authenticity and authority. In this context, Fuchs discusses such key matters as Tasso's treatment of New World themes in the Liberata and Conquistata, of official policies of the Spanish crown prohibiting the reading of imaginative fiction by the Indian population, and of perceived, related dangers regarding reading of the Bible.

An equally productive area of study is offered by the second comparative perspective, namely, the imperial rivalries of Spain and England--points of rhetorical and political contact, of divergence, and their collective threat by the Ottoman Turks. In order to articulate the sophistication of this rivalry, Fuchs analyzes such texts as Lope de Vegas La Dragontea in thoughtful ways, pointing out his complex treatment of Sir Francis Drake.

The third area of cultural mimesis she addresses is that of Spain's propagandistic casting of the Conquest of the Americas in terms of the Reconquest, despite of the fact that Spain's confrontation with Islam was far from over given the very real and ongoing threats posed by the Turks, the North African Moors, and the Moriscos.

One could take issue with Fuchs' rather facile juxtaposition of Ariosto and Tasso. To characterize Orlando Furioso as a "subversion of Christian truth" (24) is somewhat reductionist. Problematization is certainly at issue, but to speak of subversion is to ignore Ariosto's axiological and artistic subtlety. At the same time, one can point out the book's greater emphasis accorded to Spain, its literature and empire, than to England.

In spite of these observations, Mimesis and Empire is an exciting example of the viability of imperium studies and their enhancement of our appreciation of the cultural complexities inherent in the imperial pursuit.

MARINA BROWNLEE

Princeton University