This book, therefore, stands back from the issue to examine the French debate on national identity - a debate which is conventional, contradictory and lends itself to manipulation.

La realidad y el deseo. Toponymie du découvreur en Amérique espagnole (1492-1520), one of the last works of Carmen Val Julián, who died in 2004, provides pioneering, original and meticulous research on toponymy, the act of naming and what came to be known as the New World.