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The essays in this volume explore the theories and practices of sovereignty in the context of state-building in the early modern Northern and Southern Low Countries. The Dutch Revolt, the secession of the northern provinces from the Spanish empire, the formation of the Dutch Republic and the reconstitution of Habsburg authority in the south, fostered tense debates among scholars and political leaders about the legitimacy, organisation and processes of law and governance. This made the Low Countries a prime battlefield for theoretical and political contestations about the nature of public authority and the relations between different layers of government in early-modern Europe. The book approaches this historical debate from three angles: (1) political theoretical, (2) legal, and (3) politico-historical. Contributors are: Hans Blom, Bram De Ridder, Alicia Esteban Estríngana, Simon Groenveld, Gustaaf Janssens, Shavana Musa, José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, Werner Thomas, Lies van Aelst, Gustaaf van Nifterik, and René Vermeir.
Gathering a group of internationally renowned scholars, this volume presents cutting-edge research on the complex processes of identity formation in the transatlantic world of the Hispanic Baroque. Identities in the Hispanic world are deeply intertwined with sociological concepts such as class and estate, with geography and religion (i.e. the mixing of Spanish Catholics with converted Jews, Muslims, Dutch and German Protestants), and with issues related to the ethnic diversity of the world’s first transatlantic empire and its various miscegenations. Contributors to this volume offer the reader diverse vantage points on the challenging problem of how identities in the Hispanic world may be analyzed and interpreted. A number of contributors relate earlier processes and formations to Neo-Baroque and postmodern conceptualisations of identity. Given the strong interest in identity and identity-formation within contemporary cultural studies, the book will be of interest to a broad group of readers from the fields of law, geography, history, anthropology and literature.
Having succeeded in establishing themselves in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, in the early 16th century Spain and Portugal became the first imperial powers on a worldwide scale. Between 1580 and 1640, when these two entities were united, they achieved an almost global hegemony, constituting the largest political force in Europe and abroad. Although they lost their political primacy in the seventeenth century, both monarchies survived and were able to enjoy a relative success until the early 19th century. The aim of this collection is to answer the question how and why their cultural and political legacies persist to date. Part I focuses on the construction of the monarchy, examining ...
A team of experts view the relationship between rulers and their leading subjects across Europe and further afield. If God-derived authority legitimized a monarch’s rule, it did not necessarily prevent opposition to perceived arbitrary government as subjects put forward the counter-concept of consensual rule. The provincial elite might serve the ruler as advisors and officers at court but they also possessed an independent source of power based on their extensive estates. While monarchs wanted to perpetuate a system in which they could watch over members of the regional elite at court and keep them busy, they sought to make use of them as local and provincial administrators, that is, as long as they remained loyal: a fraught balancing act. Contributors include: Hélder Carvalhal, Peter Edwards, Jemma Field, Cailean Gallagher, Pedro José Herades-Ruiz, Graeme S. Millen, Vita Malašinskiené, Tibor Monostori, Steve Murdoch, David Potter, Peter R. Roberts, Irene Maria Vicente-Martin, and Matthias Wong.
This exploration of the culture of public speaking in the Iberian world places the renaissance revival of letters within a global context.
Tamar Herzog asks how territorial borders were established in the early modern period and challenges the standard view that national boundaries are settled by military conflicts and treaties. Claims and control on both sides of the Atlantic were subject to negotiation, as neighbors and outsiders carved out and defended new frontiers of possession.
How was the postal reform project in the Bourbon Monarchy conceived and implemented? Caribbean Letters delves into the intricate role of communication within the Spanish Monarchy during the Bourbon Reforms. You’ll discover how the 18th-century Spanish postal system navigated through power struggles and limitations, especially in Cartagena de Indias—a crucial hub where local and global interests converged. This book addresses key research questions on the impact of postal reforms on imperial governance and information circulation. With engaging anecdotes and rare historical data, Caribbean Letters provides a compelling narrative that reveals the complex and dynamic reality of postal communication in the Spanish Empire. Perfect for historians and enthusiasts of colonial studies.
Italy 1636 is one of the most closely-researched and detailed books on the operation of early modern armies anywhere, and is explicitly inspired by neo-Darwinian thinking. Taking the French and Savoyard invasion of Spanish Lombardy in 1636 as its specific example, it begins with the recruitment of the soldiers, the care and feeding of the armies and their horses, the impact of the invasion on civilians in the path of their advance, and the manner in which generals conducted their campaign in response to the information at their disposal. The next section describes the unfolding of the long and stubborn battle of Tornavento, where Spanish, German, and Italian soldiers stormed the French in th...
This book is devoted to the inhabitants of the Spanish–Portuguese borderlands during the early modern period. It seeks to challenge a predominant historiography focused on the study of borderlands societies, relying exclusively on the antagonistic topics of subversion and the construction of boundaries. It states that by focusing just on one concept or another there is a restrictive understanding tending to condition the agency of local communities by external narratives. Thus, if traditionally border people were reduced by some scholars to actors of a struggle against a supposedly imposed border; in a more modern perspective, their behaviors have been also framed in bottom-up processes of...
This book examines how race, ethnicity, and religious difference affected the concession of citizenship in the Spanish Empire's territories.