Entangled Empires: The Anglo-Iberian Atlantic, 1500-1830 ed. by Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra (review) (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Transatlantic Mediation of Historical Knowledge across the Iberian Empire (c1580-c1640)
Fabien MONTCHER, « The Transatlantic Mediation of Historical Knowledge across the Iberian Empire (c1580-c1640) », e-Spania [Online], 18 | juin 2014, URL : http://e-spania.revues.org/23697 ; DOI : 10.4000/e-spania.23697, 2014
During the time of the Political Turn in the historiography of the Iberian Empire (1580-1640), the parallel careers of the royal historiographer Antonio de Herrera and the would-be historian Francisco Caro de Torres are indicative of the developing mutual relations between global informants and court officials. Departing from the case of the defeat of the English corsair Drake in Panama (1596), this paper examines the processes by which the narrative of such a recent event was negotiated, censored, and reshaped according to the strategies of different court factions, and revived decades later for different professional and political uses. The case of how both Herrera and Caro de Torres used the narrative of Drake's final expedition shows the historical and political enjeux of the writing of recent history across the Atlantic between Madrid and Panama. Finally, both trajectories demonstrate continuity between the political practices royal historiographers in the reigns of Philip II and Philip III and the « hired pens » who would come to foster political action by the means of the politics of history under Philip IV.
Rethinking Conceptual History in an Iberian Atlantic Perspective
The Historical Journal
Javier Fernández Sebastián's outstanding book, Historia conceptual en el Atlántico ibérico: lenguajes, tiempos, revoluciones, is already an essential reference for all those interested not only in conceptual history or the history of Ibero-American societies, but also in reflecting on history itself, as well as on the dilemmas and challenges involved in its writing. Its text is the fruit of a seasoned and remarkably erudite intellectual trajectory, which expresses the successful endeavour of uniting the theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions in the historian's work. This bid is unambiguous in the structure of the book, as well as in the divisions and linkages among its sections and chapters, and is embodied in its very narrative and in the way it unfolds.
PA, Vol. 1, Nº 1 (2015)- Empires, merchants, and the origins of politics in the Iberian Atlantic
Resumen Este ensayo combina varios campos de investigación histórica para iluminar la edad de las revoluciones en América Latina: la crisis del mundo Ibero-Americano, la transformación del comportamiento mercantil, y el surgimiento de nuevos resortes de legitimidad política. Apunta a la importancia de la trata de esclavos en el Atlántico del Sur, y cómo la crisis de imperios provocó un golpe profundo a las economías basadas en la esclavitud. Las Guerras Trans-Atlánticas resultaron en una doble crisis, fiscal de los imperios y social para una régimen de acumulación. Los resultados de la coyuntura fueron nuevos actores sociales y nuevos modelos de política. En el debate en torno a la edad de revoluciones como continuidad o discontinuidad, este ensayo insiste en la importancia del cambio. Llama la atención sobre la centralidad de la esclavitud para la naturaleza de los regímenes y sobre el papel de las fuerzas sociales y económicas en la formación de las instituciones e ideas políticas. Abstract This essay connects several fields of historical research about the age of revolutions in Latin America: the crisis of the Iberian Atlantic, the transformation of merchant capital, and the rise of new sources of political legitimacy. It points to the importance of the slave trade in the South Atlantic, and how the crisis of empires had a fundamental effect on slave economies. Warfare produced, therefore, a fiscal crisis of the empires and a social crisis of a regime of accumulation. The outcomes of the conjuncture were new social actors and new models of politics. In the debate about whether the age of revolutions was one of continuity or discontinuity in Latin America, this essay makes the case for discontinuity. It draws attention to
International Review of Social History , 2021
This volume edited by Ivonne del Valle, Anna More, and Rachel S. O'Toole explores a twofold argument: how, while the Iberian empires pioneered early modern globalization, these empires were also globalized by interacting with and incorporating a myriad realities, agents, and cultures across the world. Iberian Empires and the Roots of Globalization delves into that question, departing from a conceptual framework built on three main assumptions: (i) the polycentric nature of the Iberian empires, (ii) the possibility of establishing a non-European, but Iberian genealogy of the globalization process, and (iii) the importance of recovering social and cultural perspectives to explain Iberian globalization, frequently dominated by economic-oriented approaches. In the view of the editors, globalization did not lead to a more homogenous world. Instead, it "created heterogeneity within a connected and complex system" (p. ). Having all these elements on the table, the book seeks to create a "space for inquiries into the non-European peoples" who forged Iberian globalization, and by extension the world's globalization. What compass have the editors chosen to guide a volume embracing such an ambitious research agenda? First, the editors have opted to privilege a multidisciplinary approach; this is one of the book's defining features. Art history, literary studies, and history cohabit under the book's umbrella to offer a "new movement of exchange" between fields (p. ). Largely grounded in the concerns of postcolonial theory, the volume's interest in the interpretative possibilities and limitations of early modern documents, including archival records, normative texts, material culture, and visual artefacts, comes as no surprise. As happens with books aiming to push disciplinary boundaries, many readers will find this choice appealing; others will find it more a statement of intention than a fruitful exercise. Secondly, variety defines the locations under consideration in the chapters. The variegated places in which the Iberian empires were present is well covered in the book, including present-day Mexico, China, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, India, and the Philippines. Besides focusing on those local observatories, this book also underscores the importance of some of the Iberian highways to globalization, such as the entanglements weaved across the Pacific Ocean, the infamous transatlantic slave trade, the Peruvian silver world commerce, and the global activities of Iberian and Catholic missionaries. Territories falling under the jurisdictions of the Spanish Empire, especially in Spanish America, are better represented than those spaces claimed by the Portuguese. Perhaps closer attention to the Portuguese experience in the Indian Ocean would have strengthened the contributions of María Elena Martínez and Bruno Feitler, who touch upon Goa in their studies. Likewise, some chapters concentrate on people of African origin in the Americas (Rachel O'Toole and Anna More), but a more detailed focus on the Iberian presence in West Africapartially explored in Feitler's and More's essayswould have dramatically rounded up an already rich variety of vantage points and case studies. Finally, in addition to combining methodologies and diversifying the cases and the locations under examination, variety also defines the collective profile of the authors. The volume includes scholars with and from different academic backgrounds, based in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, and the USA. To avoid making global history a new version of traditional northern-European narratives about the Rise of the West, historians need not only to widen the actors, objects, and geographies under study, but also the analytical and