Retórica, historia y polémica is a study of Bartolomé de las Casas' writings, within the context of the European Renaissance intellectual tradition. The book examines the rhetoric and "politics of discourse" to demonstrate how the Dominican advocate of Amerindian rights subverted the relationship between Renaissance Christian humanism and New World experience, thus arriving at the most pervasive antihegemonic perspective of the conquest. The project focuses principally on Las Casas' most ambitious text, Historia de las Indias (1522-1527), although examples are also drawn from De unico vocationis modo (1522-1527). (TEXT IN SPANISH)