(Source: Society for Nautical Research)
We learned of a call for papers
on Anglo-Spanish relations, including political relations and consular
activities, during the 18th century.
Throughout the eighteenth century,
relations between Spain and the United Kingdom were both complex and tense. Its
territorial losses in the Indies and on the Iberian Peninsula itself at the
hands of the British Crown were a huge moral blow and further evidence of the
new role that Spain had begun to play on the international stage, now
subordinated to France. The country did not only have to keep a close eye on
the actions of its ally, which were always in its own interests, but also on
Great Britain’s expansionist policy whose waves were already being felt on its
coasts. Eighteenth-century French Europe was incapable of concealing the
intense but fickle relations between Spain and Great Britain, from the moment
that the Bourbons ascended to the throne until the demise of the Ancien Régime,
after which these two former enemies set aside their differences to become allies
during the Peninsula War.
The intention here is not to
analyse the complexity of foreign policy at the time, but to determine the
intensity of the contacts between both countries and the influence that they
exerted on one another. For the wars, which were always followed by peace
accords and commercial treaties—leading in turn to the presence of merchants
and consuls, technological espionage, the intellectual corpus of the
Enlightenment, the translation of literature, admiration and suspicion,
maritime couriers, etc.—show that, beyond the enmity, open confrontation and
hostility, between the coasts of Spain and the United Kingdom there was always
some degree of contact. This ebbed and flowed with the tides of war and peace,
but persisted in that shared ocean, the best channel of communication at the
time and also the best way of isolating and blockading the enemy.
The symposium’s organisers
welcome proposals for papers covering all aspects of relations between Spain
and the United Kingdom during the eighteenth century, including (but not
limited to) the following:
– Maritime history
– Naval warfare
– Economic history
– Foreign relations
– Political and policy history
– Scientific and technological
influence – Cultural and intellectual history
– Propaganda: the image of the
other
– Consular activities
– Living and working in hostile
territory – Privateers
– Smuggling
Authors are kindly requested to
send the title and abstract (200-300-word) of their proposals for papers, plus
a brief CV (no more than one page), to reyes@udc.es or
manuel-reyes.hurtado@ucl.ac.uk, before the deadline on 31 October 2019
More information on the
conference website
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