Introduction: Timescapes of extraction

Abstract

In 1982, Eric R. Wolf published his magnum opus Europe and the People Without History. This long-length book included ‘cartographic illustrations’ selected by Noël L. Diaz. Two copper engravings by the sixteenth-century Dutch engraver and publisher Theodore de Bry open the first two parts of the book (‘Connections’ and ‘In Search of Wealth’). The second of these two engravings is titled ‘Washing gold’ (Wolf 1997 [1982]: 126–27). To the right, half-naked men dig the gallery of a gold mine with picks, while other men – we glimpse them in the darkness – are timbering the galleries. Still others run with buckets of gold on their heads, and some tip gold at the foot of a finely-dressed European lord, who is sat in a chair. He holds a rod and is surrounded by men with spears and swords. Far distant, other armed men oversee the mining activities.