Review of Akiko Tsuchiya & William G. Acree, Jr.'s EMPIRE'S END: TRANSNATIONAL CONNECTIONS IN THE HISPANIC WORLD, by Debora Zamorano (original) (raw)

Writing Spanish history in the global age: connections and entanglements in the nineteenth century

Journal of Global History, 2018

Modern Spain has remained largely absent from the debates and narratives of global history. In sharp contrast to the early modern period, the case of Spain in the nineteenth century has been overwhelmingly studied from regional and national perspectives. Fortunately, valuable efforts to integrate this country into wider frames of analysis have emerged in the last decade. Building on these writings, this article will argue that connections and entanglements represent two valuable perspectives, which allow the insertion of the Spanish experience into contemporary narratives of global history. The article has two aims. First, it seeks to ‘decentre’ modern Spain, by moving beyond its territorial borders within the Iberian Peninsula, and by examining its global dimensions, through connections with territories, colonies, and nations on several continents. Second, it aims to reveal valuable insights for current debates on global history, which arise from a focus on a country that is usuall...

Spanish Identity, between the Center and the Periphery. The Role of the History of Architecture

Dieciocho: Hispanic Enlightenement, 2020

, the Noticias de los arquitectos was published in Spain. This book in four volumes constitutes the foundational work of Spanish architectural history. Begun by the politician and intellectual Eugenio Llaguno around 1768, it was significantly augmented and completed by Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez between 1800 and 1829. The connections between this work and the emergence of Spanish national identity cannot be understated. Its protracted writing process and the singularity of its double authorship make the Noticias de los arquitectos a direct witness to the evolution of thought in Spain during the six crucial decades in the formation of the idea of nationhood in Spain, leading to the political embodiment of Spanish nationalism after the Peninsula War. While nationalisms have by definition their own particularities, Spain is unique in this regard, in that its nationalism sprung partly from the feeling that it had been marginalized from the rest of Europe, and relegated to its periphery. The main impulses of national sentiment were on the one hand, the foreign critique of Spain and its culture, encapsulated in the "Black Legend," and on the other, the perception within Spain of its own decline, and consequent sensitivity to these critiques (García Cárcel, La leyenda negra 130-162). In other words, during the Enlightenment, Spain was viewed from both within and without its borders as a part of Europe's periphery. This led to an extraordinary historiographical effort during these decades to demonstrate Spain's contribution to European culture to both foreigners and Spaniards alike, and thus allow it to regain a central role within Europe. Spanish intellectuals understood that it was necessary to counter these 1 This research was conducted in the frame of the project "Hacia Antonio Acisclo Palomino. Teoría e historiografía artísticas del Siglo de Oro" (HAR2016-79442-P), founded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity. A first draft of this paper was presented at one of the two panels on Peripheral Identities in the Hispanic World, which was part of the ISECS International Conference on the Enlightenment, held in Edinburg in July 2019, where I expounded some of the results of my PhD dissertation. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Yvonne Fuentes, who organized and coordinated both panels, for her initiative and for giving me the opportunity to participate.