Carlos Fuentes's preoccupation with history is best expressed in Terra nostra (1975). This novel constitutes a rewriting of Western history from the Roman Empire to the end of the twentieth century for the purpose of tracing the historical and ideological bases of contemporary Latin America. In this work, Fuentes proposes to identify the origin of Latin American structures within the historical and ideological configuration of Hapsburg Spain. To this end, his novel portrays an all-encompassing vision of the conquest and the founding of the New World that situates the reader at the crossroads of Hispanic history. Such a goal simultaneously requires an interpretation of the sociopolitical and conceptual history of the West and an evaluation of the premises that gave rise to the Modern Age.