scholarly journals Corrupt and Rapacious: Colonial Spanish-American Past Through the Eyes of Early Nineteenth-Century Contemporaries. A Contribution from the History of Emotions

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-139
Author(s):  
Moisés Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
New Spain ◽  
The Political ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
World Region ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Works

AbstractAround 1800, merchants, scientists and adventurers travelled to Latin America with different purposes. Their multifaceted interests in a world region, experiencing a threshold of independence from Spanish colonial rule, inspired new historical and political works about the continent’s recent past. The Enlightenment provided not only the philosophical armamentarium against corruption, but it also paved the way to a new expression of sentiments and to the loss of fear when addressing injustice. Some examples of these are Hipólito Villaroel’s list of grievances and Humboldt’s Political essay. These two authors provide some thoughts on the political landscape of New Spain (now Mexico), while the two Swiss physicians Rengger and Longchamp describe the ruthless and odd dictator Francia of independent Paraguay as a champion of anti-corruption. Finally, Argentine dictator Rosas—and his robberies as described by Rivera Indarte, Sarmiento and other anonymous authors—represent the embodiment of corruption through pure larceny, for whose crimes the Spanish colonial past apparently no longer served as a comparison.

scholarly journals Shifting the Frontiers of Early Modern Science: Astronomers, Botanists, and Engineers in Viceregal New Spain during the Habsburg Era, 1535-1700

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nancy Marquez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
History Of

<p>This doctoral thesis offers a big-picture view of the material and cultural history of science in colonial Latin America. It argues that science in the Viceroyalty of New Spain can be best understood not as isolated from centres of European culture, but rather as a productive extension of Old World and Indigenous techniques for observing and quantifying nature. Moreover, it also shows that Mexico City quickly became a central node in the production and funding of science within the Spanish Empire, rather than being peripheral to early modern scientific discourse. It examines the nerve centre of Spain’s overseas territories, the viceregal capital of New Spain, as a hub not only of funding but also of vibrant activity for Spanish and Novohispanic science from 1535 to 1700.  Current historians of Spanish and Spanish-colonial science have demonstrated that, in contrast with depictions in older histories of early modern science, Spain was an active producer of technologies of discovery and natural resource extraction as well as works on theoretical and applied mathematics. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown and other private corporate bodies—including the religious orders—supported the production of new forms of knowledge. I will refer to these throughout as “science” and to its practitioners as “scientists.”  Scientists who feature prominently in this thesis set precedents for later scientific endeavours in Latin America and Europe. Sixteenth-century botanist Francisco Hernández, cartographer Francisco Domínguez y Ocampo, and astronomer Jaime Juan established some of the first large-scale observations and records of an expansive New Spain. In the following years a diverse set of seventeenth-century hydraulic engineers fielded a variety of solutions to a complex set of topographical and political issues in the viceregal capital. At the same time, a lively group of astronomer-mathematicians contributed to an increasingly global network of scientific discourse.  Many of these scientists and intellectuals owned notable personal libraries. This thesis examines the implications of mobile books—locally-produced as well as European—as they contributed to the production of new knowledge in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Powerful Spanish and criolla women patronized or supported the promulgation of scientific writings in New Spain. Additionally, indigenous authors disseminated the concepts of early modern science to their readers within colonial-era Nahua chronicles. Hobbyists also interacted with professional and well-known scientific thinkers at local discussion clubs or via correspondence and improvised their own instruments based on available texts. Local book printers and authors of popular early modern science works are also included in this investigation as they played key roles within the social networks of science.  This thesis relies on archival manuscript sources while synthesizing the rigorous scholarship of many specialists in order to tell the story of how a major sixteenth-century Spanish colonial city possessed the resources to engage in a variety of early modern scientific undertakings. It re-examines documents concerning the history of science in New Spain in order to ask new questions about the role of scientists’ instruments, personal book collections, and correspondence with colleagues abroad upon the influence of their professional writings. By assembling a selection of key case studies, the thesis shows that sixteenth-century royal investments in scientific institutions on the Iberian Peninsula bore fruit in New Spain during the late 1500s and the 1600s as diverse communities of scientists flourished in Mexico City and its seaports. In sum, this is a study of the movement of early modern scientists, their tools and ideas as well as the concentration of these resources in the geographical and cultural surroundings of New Spain.</p>

scholarly journals Shifting the Frontiers of Early Modern Science: Astronomers, Botanists, and Engineers in Viceregal New Spain during the Habsburg Era, 1535-1700

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nancy Marquez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
History Of

<p>This doctoral thesis offers a big-picture view of the material and cultural history of science in colonial Latin America. It argues that science in the Viceroyalty of New Spain can be best understood not as isolated from centres of European culture, but rather as a productive extension of Old World and Indigenous techniques for observing and quantifying nature. Moreover, it also shows that Mexico City quickly became a central node in the production and funding of science within the Spanish Empire, rather than being peripheral to early modern scientific discourse. It examines the nerve centre of Spain’s overseas territories, the viceregal capital of New Spain, as a hub not only of funding but also of vibrant activity for Spanish and Novohispanic science from 1535 to 1700.  Current historians of Spanish and Spanish-colonial science have demonstrated that, in contrast with depictions in older histories of early modern science, Spain was an active producer of technologies of discovery and natural resource extraction as well as works on theoretical and applied mathematics. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown and other private corporate bodies—including the religious orders—supported the production of new forms of knowledge. I will refer to these throughout as “science” and to its practitioners as “scientists.”  Scientists who feature prominently in this thesis set precedents for later scientific endeavours in Latin America and Europe. Sixteenth-century botanist Francisco Hernández, cartographer Francisco Domínguez y Ocampo, and astronomer Jaime Juan established some of the first large-scale observations and records of an expansive New Spain. In the following years a diverse set of seventeenth-century hydraulic engineers fielded a variety of solutions to a complex set of topographical and political issues in the viceregal capital. At the same time, a lively group of astronomer-mathematicians contributed to an increasingly global network of scientific discourse.  Many of these scientists and intellectuals owned notable personal libraries. This thesis examines the implications of mobile books—locally-produced as well as European—as they contributed to the production of new knowledge in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Powerful Spanish and criolla women patronized or supported the promulgation of scientific writings in New Spain. Additionally, indigenous authors disseminated the concepts of early modern science to their readers within colonial-era Nahua chronicles. Hobbyists also interacted with professional and well-known scientific thinkers at local discussion clubs or via correspondence and improvised their own instruments based on available texts. Local book printers and authors of popular early modern science works are also included in this investigation as they played key roles within the social networks of science.  This thesis relies on archival manuscript sources while synthesizing the rigorous scholarship of many specialists in order to tell the story of how a major sixteenth-century Spanish colonial city possessed the resources to engage in a variety of early modern scientific undertakings. It re-examines documents concerning the history of science in New Spain in order to ask new questions about the role of scientists’ instruments, personal book collections, and correspondence with colleagues abroad upon the influence of their professional writings. By assembling a selection of key case studies, the thesis shows that sixteenth-century royal investments in scientific institutions on the Iberian Peninsula bore fruit in New Spain during the late 1500s and the 1600s as diverse communities of scientists flourished in Mexico City and its seaports. In sum, this is a study of the movement of early modern scientists, their tools and ideas as well as the concentration of these resources in the geographical and cultural surroundings of New Spain.</p>

scholarly journals “Apostles and men of learning”: Miguel Venegas, Andrés Marcos Burriel, and the Jesuit Vocation for Natural History

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-55
Author(s):  
Bryan Green
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
Ascetic Ideal ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Mission ◽  
Natural Histories

The transformation of the Empressas apostólicas (1739), a manuscript history of the Jesuits’ missions in Lower California written by the novo-Hispanic Jesuit Miguel Venegas, into the Noticia de la California (1757), a thoroughly revised version of Venegas’s original prepared by the Spanish Jesuit Andrés Marcos Burriel, provides a case study in how the enactment of the Jesuit ascetic ideal exercised on the Spanish-American mission frontier was closely linked to Enlightenment natural history and ethnography. Through an analysis of both works, as well as Burriel’s correspondence with his Jesuit confrères in New Spain, this article aims to demonstrate the underlying tension in eighteenth-century Jesuit writing between traditional, providential narratives and the skeptical, scientific discourse of secular natural histories. Burriel’s work, which was widely translated and disseminated throughout Europe, aimed to bridge these two discourses by employing the Society’s apostolic-ascetic vocation and global missionary network in the service of natural histories that would appeal to a secular reading public and inform Spanish colonial administration.

Freedom Tide? Ideology, Politics, and the Origins of Democracy Promotion in U.S. Central America Policy, 1980–1984

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Dramatic Shift

The Reagan administration came to power in 1981 seeking to downplay Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Yet, by 1985 the administration had come to justify its policies towards Central America in the very same terms. This article examines the dramatic shift that occurred in policymaking toward Central America during Ronald Reagan's first term. Synthesizing existing accounts while drawing on new and recently declassified material, the article looks beyond rhetoric to the political, intellectual, and bureaucratic dynamics that conditioned the emergence of a Reaganite human rights policy. The article shows that events in El Salvador suggested to administration officials—and to Reagan himself—that support for free elections could serve as a means of shoring up legitimacy for embattled allies abroad, while defending the administration against vociferous human rights criticism at home. In the case of Nicaragua, democracy promotion helped to eschew hard decisions between foreign policy objectives. The history of the Reagan Doctrine's contentious roots provides a complex lens through which to evaluate subsequent U.S. attempts to foster democracy overseas.

GEOGRAPHY, ENLIGHTENMENT, AND IMPROVEMENT Geography and Enlightenment. Edited by David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp. viii+455. ISBN 0-226-48720-2 (hb). $52·00. 0-226-48721-0 (pb). $25·00. Nature's government: science, imperial Britain, and the ‘improvement’ of the world. By Richard Drayton. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000. Pp. xxi+346. ISBN 0-300-05976-0. £25·00. Enlightenment geography: the political languages of British geography, 1650–1850. By Robert J. Mayhew. London: Macmillan, 2000. Pp. viii+324. ISBN 0-333-79186-X. £45·00.

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
FELIX DRIVER
Keyword(s):  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Botanic Garden ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Lecture Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

What is Enlightenment? Few questions in the history of ideas can have given rise to more controversy, sustained over more than two centuries and extending into the furthest reaches of contemporary thought. In comparison, the ‘where’ of Enlightenment – the sites from which philosophes garnered their evidence, the settings in which their ideas took shape, the networks through which they were disseminated, the contexts in which they were interpreted – has received much less attention. It is not that these geographies have been altogether neglected. Distinctions between different ‘national’ Enlightenments (French, Scottish, English, and so on) are familiar, perhaps all too familiar, to historians of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At a smaller scale, it is difficult to imagine historical accounts of the Enlightenment world without some sort of tour of those paradigmatic sites – the coffee house, the botanic garden, the lecture theatre. There is a geography here, of sorts: but in truth it is often simply a stage for action, a passive background (sometimes ‘national’, sometimes ‘local’) to the real business of social and intellectual change. In recent years, however, intellectual historians in general, and historians of science in particular, have begun to pay more attention to these and many other sites, not simply as inert contexts but as vital components of the making and communication of new knowledge. Thus is a genuine geography of knowledge in the making.

scholarly journals Ethnographic Memories

1969 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Maxime Polleri
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Politics Of Knowledge ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of

This article explores the similarities between a memoir and an ethnographic work. A memoir stands as an historical account written from personal knowledge. It is a form of writing that should resonate deeply within the heart of the anthropologist, whose very own specificity is to be, first and foremost, an ethnographer. That is, anthropologists are individuals full of (hi) stories, contingence, and subjectivity, who nevertheless struggle to bring “objective” accounts of what had happened under their eyes during fieldwork. I use this short comparative act as a jumping board to examine the politics of knowledge in the history of anthropological inquiry since the Enlightenment. More precisely, this comparison represents an opportunity to look at what is silently invested in the practices of ethnographical writing. In a brief discussion, I highlight the political implications that surround issues of knowledge production, expert voices, and translation amidst the discourse and narrative of anthropologists.

Toward a Pastoral Reading of the Bible Not Confined to the Church

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-587
Author(s):  
Jorge Pixley
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Study Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Composition ◽  
The Church

AbstractUsing the experience of the network of popular biblical study groups in Latin America and the biblical scholars who accompany them, this article outlines the basic requirements for a pastoral reading of the Bible. Special emphasis is given to the need for using the history of composition, necessarily hypothetical, in order to recover the political dynamics of the texts. The resulting pastoral reading will serve a public as well as a church function.

Introduction

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World History ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
World Region ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
History Of ◽  
Northern Atlantic ◽  
The Creation ◽  
History Of Europe

This book examines the temporality of modernity by focusing on the relations between Africa, America and Europe. More specifically, it considers the extent to which the supposed arrival of modernity in Europe affects the ways in which human beings situate themselves in time and history worldwide. It also explores how institutionally entrenched interpretations of modernity based on inequality and oppression are transformed into novel forms that are shaped by the drive to inclusive–egalitarian collective self-determination. In linking the history of Europe to world history, the book shows that what is often referred to as ‘the rise of Europe’ was the creation of an Atlantic world region with increasingly dense but highly asymmetric commercial and communicative ties. This introduction discusses the debate over the relation between the history and the theory of modernity, the connection between the Northern Atlantic West and the origins of modernity, and novel interpretations of modernity in Africa and Latin America.

International processes in Latin America: the legacy of the Comintern and new challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-125
Author(s):  
Anton Andreev ◽  
◽  
Daria Pravdiuk
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Impact

The activities of the Third (Communist) International left a noticeable mark on the political history of Latin America. His ideological, organizational legacy remains a factor in shaping the theory and practice of contemporary leftist governments in the region. This article examines the impact of the legacy of the Comintern on international processes in Latin America, the development of integration projects, foreign policy projects of the left forces of the region. On the basis of archival documents, media materials, documents of parties and governments, the authors show which of the foreign policy guidelines of the Comintern are relevant for the region in the 21st century.

Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War: Some Reflections on the 1945–8 Conjuncture

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Bethell ◽  
Ian Roxborough
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The importance of the years of political and social upheaval immediately following the end of the Second World War and coinciding with the beginnings of the Cold War, that is to say, the period from 1944 or 1945 to 1948 or 1949, for the history of Europe (East and West), the Near and Middle East, Asia (Japan, China, South and East Asia), even Africa (certainly South Africa) in the second half of the twentieth century has long been generally recognised. In recent years historians of the United States, which had not, of course, been a theatre of war and which alone among the major belligerents emerged from the Second World War stronger and more prosperous, have begun to focus attention on the political, social and ideological conflict there in the postwar period – and the long term significance for the United States of the basis on which it was resolved. In contrast, except for Argentina, where Perón's rise to power has always attracted the interest of historians, the immediate postwar years in Latin America, which had been relatively untouched by, and had played a relatively minor role in, the Second World War, remain to a large extent neglected. It is our view that these years constituted a critical conjuncture in the political and social history of Latin America just as they did for much of the rest of the world. In a forthcoming collection of case studies, which we are currently editing, the main features of the immediate postwar period in Latin America, and especially the role played by labour and the Left, will be explored in some detail, country by country.1In this article, somewhat speculative and intentionally polemical, we present the broad outlines of our thesis.

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