Ecological Imperialism in Early Modern Spanish Narratives

Ecological Imperialism in Early Modern Spanish Narratives

Excavating the Environmental Conflicts of the Iberian Globalization

How are the environmental conflicts of our time intertwined with the legacies of Spanish imperialism and early modern globalization? In Ecological Imperialism in Early Modern Spanish Narratives: Excavating the Environmental Conflicts of the Iberian Globalization, Miguel Ibáñez Aristondo argues that to understand the historical ramifications of the ecological crisis, it is imperative to excavate the fragmented histories and entangled viewpoints associated with European imperialism. Drawing on early modern Iberian, Indigenous, and European sources, the book interrogates how early modern debates regarding war, free trade, abundance, property, race, sovereignty, and history were deeply entwined within ideas and theories driving the relationship between humans and the environment. By exploring the conflict-ridden experiences arising from Spanish imperialism, the book argues that ecological crises have given rise to divergent visions and social hierarchies over time, driven by environmental conflicts opposing social justice and collective life to capital accumulation and imperial competition.
  • Cover
  • Table of Contents
    • Acknowledgements
    • Introduction: Tracing the Environmental Legacies of Ecological Imperialism
      • I. The Fragmented Entanglements of Iberian Globalization: Seven Theses
      • II. The Capitalist Epistemologies of Ecological Imperialism
      • III. Planetary Human Agencies in the Contact Zone
    • 1. War, Trade, and Imperialism in Iberian Narratives of China
      • I. Labor, Peace, and Abundance in China
      • II. Environmental Writing in the Transpacific West
      • III. Affluence and Spanish Imperialism
      • IV. War, Free Trade, and Spanish Imperialism
    • 2. Silencing Indigenous Agency through Natural History
      • I. Climate Zones and Planetary Habitability
      • II. The Ideological Substance of Extractive Regimes
      • III. The Erasure of Indigenous Agency in the Iberian Natural History
      • IV. The Extractive Nature of History
    • 3. Indigenous Responses in the Contact Zone
      • I. Indigenous Responses to Environmental Conflicts
      • II. Demographic Decline and Racial Regimes of Historicity
      • III. Sapcis, Collcas, and the Struggle Against Racial Capitalism
      • IV. Infrastructures of Dispossession in the Contact Zone
    • 4. Affluence and Racial Capitalism
      • I. Free Trade, War, and Technology in Southeast Asia
      • II. Commodifying Nature, Erasing Native Environments
      • III. From Paradise to the Extractive Zone
      • IV. Racial Regimes of Historicity in Pinelo’s New World Eden
    • Conclusion: Writing the Planetary Crisis from the Edges of the Poor
    • Bibliography and Sources
    • Index of Names
    • Index of Subjects and Places
  • List of Illustrations
    • Illustration 1: Allegory of America, ca. 1587–89, Jan van der Straet, a.k.a. Stradanus. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Digital Library.
    • Illustration 2. America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in Monte’s Planisphere (1587). Source: David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.
    • Illustration 3. Southeast Asia in Urbano Monte’s Planisphere (1587). Source: David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.
    • Illustration 4. Cerro de Potosí. Codex K3 (ca. 1585). Source: Hispanic Society of America (NYC).
    • Illustration 5. Laborers in cart loads of silver, Potosí. In Theodoor de Bry, Historia Americae sive Novi Orbis, 1596. Source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theodoor_de_bry.jpg.
    • Illustration 6. The first world, Adam and Eve. In Guamán Poma, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. 1615/16. GKS 2232, page 22. Source: Royal Danish Library.
    • Illustration 7. The first generation of Indians. In Guamán Poma, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. 1615/16. GKS 2232, page 48. Source: Royal Danish Library.
    • Illustration 8. The second age of Indians. In Guamán Poma, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. 1615/16. GKS 2232, page 53. Source: Royal Danish Library.
    • Illustration 9. The third age of Indians. In Guamán Poma, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. 1615/16. GKS 2232, page 57. Source: Royal Danish Library.
    • Illustration 10. Drawing depicting the imperial city of Potosí. Guaman Poma, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. 1615/16. GKS 2232, page 1065. Source: Royal Danish Library.
    • Illustration 11. Foldout image showing a Manila galleon arriving at the Ladrones Islands (1590). Bloomington, Indiana University Bloomington, Lilly Library, LMC 2444 (Boxer Codex), unnumbered foldout.
    • Illustration 12. Carolus Clusius, Exoticorum Libri Decem (1605). Front page. Source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carolus_Clusius02.jpg.

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