This book is focused on the human relations between the different Guarani groups that the Jesuit Missionaries had gathered in the «converse native villages , also known as «reducciones .
It is based on the testimonies of various Missionaries, with references to their letters and texts written in the peace of their European retirement after the expulsion in 1767.
In these gathered documents it is possible to recognize the goodwill of the evangelists, as well as the cultural differences that often imposed an unsurmountable gap.
Undoubtedly the Jesuits pusued the natives' happiness, their «salvation from their point of view, and the means they employed stemmed directly from their social utopia: to establish «God's City on Earth.
The controversies arisen by this unique one and a half century experience, contrast the enthusiasm and calling of the first christians with the accusations that it was indeed a veiled new form of commercial exploit and even enslavery.
There is a great number of works that analyze the «Misiones political and economical system, so in this book we have placed the focus in a different aspect of this unique experience, more related to the historical ethnology and the issue of «otherness , giving a special attention to the iconography and its documentary value.
Duviols, Jean Paul: - "Jean-Paul Duviols, born in Toulouse in 1936, associate of Spanish and Doctor of State, is professor emeritus of the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, where he occupied the chair of Latin American literature and civilization. Specializes in the study of the pre-Columbian period, voyages of discovery, colonization and iconographic analysis, Dr Duviols has directed numerous works for Paris Sorbonne university presses, including Le miroir du nouveau monde, published in 2006. The Spanish America seen and dreamed (1986) shows the influence of travel stories on European thought and the image of America. This image, sometimes faithful, sometimes erroneous, often bears the mark of European mentalities. The New World Mirror (2006) complements the previous research, highlighting the diversity of European iconography relating to America and its decisive role in the history of mentalities. For twenty-five years, Jean-Paul Duviols has been running the first Thursday of every month, the Tribunes des Livres of the Maison de l'Amérique latine2. He is also known for his pedagogical publications, in particular a Spanish Grammar and the series of textbooks Sol y Sombra (from the 4th to the final) and Cambios (from the second to the final) published by Bordas editions, from 1972 to 1989 In the 1970s and 1980s, these textbooks were very successful. Their originality was based essentially on the importance given to Latin America, its literature, its history and artistic creations, the introduction of press extracts, advertisements and comic drawings added to the documents proposed for comments, and finally on their rich iconography and on a choice of very diversified texts. At Stockcero he has published Brevísima relación de la Destruyción de las Indias de Bartolomé de Las Casas, a translation with introduction and notes of Accarette du Biscay, Viaje al Río de la Plata y a Potosí, Auguste Guinnard, Tres años de esclavitud entre los Patagones, La colonia francesa de Florida (1562-1565), with notes by Jacques Lemoyne de Morgues, Verdadera Historia y Descripción de un País, by Hans Staden, Usos y Costumbres de los Salvajes de Virginia, with notes by Thomas Hariot and drawings by John White, El Nuevo Mundo. Los viajes de Amerigo Vespucci (1497-1504)., Cristóbal Colón - Viajes a Las Indias (1492 - 1504) and Indios Guaraníes y Jesuitas - Misiones de la Compañía de Jesús en el Paraguay (1610-1767."
