16 May 2024

BOOK: Mauricio NIETO OLARTE, Exploration, Religion and Empire in the Sixteenth-century Ibero-Atlantic World. A New Perspective on the History of Modern Science (Amsterdam: University Press, 2021). ISBN: 9789463725316, pp. 330 € 141,00

 

(Source: AUP)


ABOUT THE BOOK

The Iberian conquest of the Atlantic at the beginning of the sixteenth century had a notable impact on the formation of the new world order in which Christian Europe claimed control over most a considerable part of the planet. This was possible thanks to the confluence of different and inseparable factors: the development of new technical capacities and favorable geographical conditions in which to navigate the great oceans; the Christian mandate to extend the faith; the need for new trade routes; and an imperial organization aspiring to global dominance. The author explores new methods for approaching old historiographical problems of the Renaissance—such as the discovery and conquest of America, the birth of modern science, and the problem of Eurocentrism—now in reference to actors and regions scarcely visible in the complex history of modern Europe: the ships, the wind, the navigators, their instruments, their gods, saints, and demons.


ABOUT THE BOOK

Mauricio Nieto Olarte is titular Professor at the Department of History and Geography as well as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

List of illustrations Acknowledgments


Introduction

The New World and the problem of Eurocentrism

Science and empire

Summary of the chapters in this book


1. The Iberian Peninsula and the Atlantic

Portugal and Spain

Winds, currents, and sailing ships in the Atlantic

Gold, silver, slaves, souls, and a thousand kinds of trees


2. The imperial bureaucracy and the appropriation of the New World

Seville and the Casa de Contratacion

The universal monarchy


3. The piloto mayor: cosmography and the art of navigation

The post of piloto mayor: seamanship and cartography

The navigation manuals

Manuals for the Empire

Publications, dissemination, and secrecy

Humanism and the classics

Experience and authority

Man against the sea: shipwrecks and meteorology

Routes and chorographic descriptions: The New World within the new global order


4. Machines of the empire

The ships

Shipbuilding

War and artillery

Navigational instruments

The astrolabe

The cross-staff

The mariner’s compass

Time and clocks

The sounding/plumb line

The navigation charts

Astronomical tables

Instruments, measurements, precision, and standardization

The crew

The captain/admiral

The pilot

The shipmaster (maestre) and quartermaster (contramaestre)

The boatswain (guardian)

The ordinary seamen (marineros)

Midshipmen (grumetes) and cabin boys (pajes)

The carpenter, steward, cooper, and cook

The scribe, master-at-arms, and overseer

The cannoneer

The barber/surgeon

The priest

Life on board

The argot of the sailors

Overcrowding

Food and health

Men of the sea and men of God


5. The Master Map (Padrón Real) and the cartography of the New World

Nautical charts and how they were made

The making of a chart

The charts of tierra firme: the earliest maps of the New World

Three early maps of the New World

Juan de la Cosa (1500)

Waldseemuller (1507)

Diego Ribero (1520) 6. The creatures of God never seen before: natural history

Nature in the New World

The classics and the Bible

Monsters in paradise

To describe, classify, and name

Medicine, botany, and the knowledge of the natives

The Empire and natural history


7. The New World, global science, and Eurocentrism

Plus ultra

Experience and authority

The Empire and the challenge of standardization

Eurocentrism


Bibliography

About the Author

Index



More information with the publisher.

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