Formative Modernities in the Early Modern Atlantic and Beyond: Identities, Polities and Glocal Economies

375 Pages·2023·6.5 MB·English

by  Veronika Hyden-Hanscho, Werner Stangl

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
COMPARATIVE GLOBAL HISTORY
Formative Modernities
in the Early Modern
Atlantic and Beyond
Identities, Polities and Glocal Economies
Edited by
Veronika Hyden-Hanscho
Werner Stangl
Palgrave Studies in Comparative Global History
Series Editors
Manuel Perez-Garcia, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Lucio De Sousa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan
This series proposes a new geography of Global History research
using Asian and Western sources, welcoming quality research and
engaging outstanding scholarship from China, Europe and the Americas.
Promotingacademicexcellenceandcriticalintellectualanalysis,itoffersa
rich source of global history research in sub-continental areas of Europe,
Asia (notably China, Japan and the Philippines) and the Americas and
aims to help understand the divergences and convergences between East
and West.
Advisory Board
Patrick O’Brien (London School of Economics)
Anne McCants (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Joe McDermott (University of Cambridge)
Pat Manning (Pittsburgh University)
Mihoko Oka (University of Tokyo)
Richard Von Glahn (University of California, Los Angeles)
Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla (Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla)
Shigeru Akita (Osaka University)
François Gipouloux (CNRS/FMSH)
Carlos Marichal (Colegio de Mexico)
Leonard Blusse (Leiden University)
Antonio Ibarra Romero (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico,
UNAM)
Giorgio Riello (University of Warwick)
Nakajima Gakusho (Kyushu University)
Liu Beicheng (Tsinghua University)
Li Qingxin (Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences)
Dennis O. Flynn (University of the Pacific)
J. B. Owens (Idaho State University)
·
Veronika Hyden-Hanscho Werner Stangl
Editors
Formative Modernities
in the Early Modern
Atlantic and Beyond
Identities, Polities and Glocal Economies
Editors
Veronika Hyden-Hanscho Werner Stangl
Austrian Academy of Sciences University of Graz
Vienna, Austria Graz, Austria
ISSN 2662-7965 ISSN 2662-7973 (electronic)
Palgrave Studies in Comparative Global History
ISBN 978-981-19-8416-7 ISBN 978-981-19-8417-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8417-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
namesareexemptfromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreefor
general use.
Thepublisher,theauthors,andtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinforma-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeen
made.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmaps
and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Contributor: The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd.
Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:152BeachRoad,#21-01/04GatewayEast,Singapore
189721, Singapore
For Renate Pieper—Colleague, Teacher, and Friend
Foreword
A Personal Reflection on Experiences
of Globalization and Early
Modern Spanish History
Spain,alongsidePortugal,certainlyheldanimportantpositionwithinthe
so-called ‘era of European expansion’—nowadays referred to as the ‘age
of first globalization’ especially among modern historians—replete with
famous seafarers and conquerors. Numerous voyagers to seldom-known
or even completely unknown parts of the world achieved literary fame
through surviving accounts of their journeys, experiences, and observa-
tions. Both historians and literary scholars have analyzed such writings,
raising the profile of unknown figures with wartime experiences who had
written their autobiographies in their later years through the publication
of a volume in the well-known series Biblioteca de Autores Españoles (de
Cossio 1956). Do such veterans of European hegemonic warfare have
anything to do with globalization, however, even if it is only an ‘initial
globalization’?
An extensive number of contributions by leading scholars was recently
published on behalf of the Society for Overseas History (Gesellschaft
für Überseegeschichte) with the title Encyclopaedia of Overseas History
(Lexikon zur Überseegeschichte). The titles of the encyclopedia and the
society indicate that terms other than ‘globalization’—an epithet only
recently established—have been used for the historyof the Early Modern
vii
viii FOREWORD
period beginning around 1500 (Hiery 2015, p. 922). Often derided as
‘Eurocentric’muchinthesamewayas‘thehistoryofoldwhitemen’,the
term ‘overseas history’ appeared not out of contempt for ‘non-European
peoples’ but rather because, as the United Nations recognized, most
written sources concerning overseas expansion remained stored within
European archives. Instigated in the 1950s with the support of the
UN, all public archival holdings pertaining to Latin America in Europe
have been compiled into bibliographic overviews (see, for example,
Schwebel 1972; Walne 1973; Archives Nationales 1984). Additionally,
attempts to broaden the field through terms such as ‘universal history’
(‘Universalgeschichte’)orworldhistory(Weltgeschichte)havelargelycome
to nothing since the German term for history itself (Geschichte) derives
from the word for ‘occurence’ (Geschehen). In the Romance-language
countries, however, variable prefixes to the Latin baseword historia—
which actually derives from the Greek term for ‘inquiry’ (ƒστoρι´α)—has
long since prevailed. Yet even in these countries, journals with titles such
asHistoire d’OutreMer ord’Oltra Mare precededthesetermsduetothe
fact that history, as a discipline, only emerged in the nineteenth century
via a distinct reverence for empirical sourcework.
Within the history of the Americas, renowned historians frequently
published bibliographical overviews of thematically specialized archival
holdings based upon their foreign research stays and exchanges (Meißner
1994, pp. 823–1032; Danwerth 2021). These publications resulted from
central archives, especially on the Iberian Peninsula, becoming a gath-
ering point for international researchers after the First World War. The
World’s Fair in Seville during the 1920s brought about a further influx
of visitors to the Archivo General de Indias, the primary archive of the
Spanish Crown for overseas territories based in Seville since the eigh-
teenth century. The Archivo General de Indias, organized according to
the ancien-régime criteria of the Spanish Crown, allowed for optimal
research into Spanish colonial history since this older archival system was
familiar. In contrast, most archival repositories of the independent Latin
American states were either virtually inaccessible or completely unorga-
nized,deterringmanyyoungresearchersonshort-termtravelgrantsfrom
undertaking prolonged and arduous investigations within these collec-
tions. To take one personal example, I myself encountered this situation
during a research trip to the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico
City in 1964 when asking for records following the 1821 independence
FOREWORD ix
which,thearchivistlaterrevealed,werestoredintheso-calledCasaAmar-
illa or ‘Yellow House’—an offsite multi-story building completely closed
tothepublic.Afterarrangingaccesstothisarchivaltroveinthecompany
of the archivist, I discovered a veritable mountain of papers and files,
some with a bullet or bayonet holes and covered in a thick layer of dust
which hid the true extent of disorder and made research entirely impos-
sible. Only decades later did these records become accessible following
renovation and reorganization. Yet my experience illustrates one of the
predominant reasons why histories of the post-independent Latin Amer-
ican states remained in the sole purview of domestic researchers for a
significant period of time and, moreover, why they only became known
outside this region through the International Congress of Americanists
held quinquennially between the Americas and Europe.
We should not overlook, however, the founding of the journal
HispanicAmericanHistoricalReviewintheUnitedStatesin1918aswell
astheriseofLatinAmericanstudieswithintheAmericanHistoricalAsso-
ciation following the end of the First World War. By the mid-twentieth
century, these two institutions imparteda considerableinfluence over the
widerfieldofLatinAmericanhistory.InEurope,ontheotherhand,insti-
tutionalization of Latin American history first began in the 1950s when
specificuniversityprofessorshipsandinstitutesappearedacrosseasternand
western Europe. Concurrent with the events of the 1920s mentioned
above, Spain played a leading role through the journals Revista de Indias
and Anuario des Estudios Americanos published in Madrid and Seville.
In 1968, the Sevillian holder of the Chair of the History of Discovery,
FranciscoMoralesPadrón,initiatedasummercourseforEuropeanhisto-
rians of Latin America in Santander. Similarly, Professor Frédéric Mauro,
the leading European historian of Portuguese expansion of his time,
repeated such a meeting in Paris in 1973. Following another meeting at
the University of Cologne in 1975, the Association of European Histo-
rians of Latin America (Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanistas
Europeos) or AHILA was founded formally in Torún, Poland, in 1978
as the first meeting in an Eastern Bloc state with representatives from
the Soviet Union, Poland, the German Democratic Republic (GDR),
Czechoslovakia, and Hungary being present. Members of AHILA have
since then organized an international congress approximately every three
yearswithparticipantsfromacrosstheglobeattending.Atthesametime,
it is also worth mentioning that AHILA used Portuguese and Spanish as
x FOREWORD
the sole means of communication and regularly published the conference
proceedings in those languages.
The GDR historian Manfred Kossok held a central role throughout
this period as an academic bridge between East and West. He also dealt
considerably with important methodological questions within the field
(Kossok2000,pp.297–307).Inhis1993essayontheproblemofglobal
history, Kossok acutely pointed out, heeding the warnings of the Club of
Rome,howglobalhistoryasanoffshootofglobalizationalsoforcesusto
rethink the definition of the concept of progress. Kossok concluded his
considerationswiththissalientpoint:‘Ifglobalhistoryhasameaningand
a purpose, then it is certainly the push toward practical action through a
new awareness’ (Kossok 2000, p. 307). In a Festschrift from 2002 in
honor of Kossok, historian Jerry H. Bentley, Director at the Center for
WorldHistoryattheUniversityofHawaii,followeduponthisissueinhis
‘From National History toward World History’ wherein he made refer-
ence to great oceanic world spaces and, after a bibliographical overview
and critique of Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ idea, he
pleaded for ‘world history’ as an open-ended concept (Bentley 2000,
pp. 169–182).
The 1980s witnessed a series of handbooks on the history of Latin
America following the widespread publication of archival guides, bibli-
ographies, and, for the first time, footage from the World’s Fair in
Seville in the wake of the Columbian quincentennial anniversary in
1992.AppearinginnumerousEuropeancountries,oftenstretchingacross
several volumes and written by an array of interdisciplinary authors (e.g.
Berneckeretal.1994),thesehandbooksprovidedfurtherresearchstimuli
tothedegreethatitbecamecommonplacetoseethefieldrepresentedby
large numbers within international debates.
Attention-grabbing anniversaries for journalists and politicians alone
do not account for the advancements within the field of Latin American
history, however. Instead, the reframing of colonial pasts within inde-
pendent states and the historical culture of remembrance within former
colonial countries serve to better explain the return of more traditional
themes such as spheres of influence, sovereignty, borderlands, as well as
debates on the role of multilateral organizations (such as the OECD),
colonialism,racism,andfeminismwithinthecurrentpublicmindset.Even
major media outlets such as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) (Buch
2021; Corman 2021; Redaktion NZZ 2021; Rhyn and Büchenbacher
2021),theoldestGerman-languagenewspaperstillpublishingtoday,have