Synopses & Reviews
This collection of essays takes as its point of departure early modern Spain's insistent rhetorics of nation and kingship, of a monolithic body of shared values and beliefs, especially in respect of racial and gender stereotypes, and of a centralized and ostensibly absolutist legislative apparatus. These discourses furnished the 'official' ideological landscape of Habsburg Spain. But this does not mean that they mapped unproblematically onto the complex topography of everyday life, or the lived experience of Spaniards; nor did it preclude them from being subjected by other Spaniards to sceptical or even subversive commentary. As these essays show, confronting ideology were questions of economic pragmatism, executive feasibility, jurisdictional competence, and, above all, the social and political complexity of the Spain of the period. RICHARD PYM is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Synopsis
Early modern Spain's insistent rhetorics of nation and kingship, of a monolithic body of shared values and beliefs, especially in respect of racial and gender stereotypes, and of a centralized and ostensibly absolutist legislative apparatus did not map unproblematically onto the complex topography of everyday life. This volume explores the extent to which these rhetorics and the ideology they helped to construct or underpin reflected or failed to reflect the realities of social, economic, and cultural life. It sets against their typically exorbitant claims the lived, messy, and sometimes contradictory experience of Spaniards across a broad social spectrum, both at the centre and at the margins, not just of peninsular society, but of the Hispanic world overseas. Confronting ideology were questions of economic pragmatism, executive feasibility, jurisdictional competence, and, above all, the social and political complexity of the Spain of the period. RICHARD J. PYM is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. Contributors: TREVOR J. DADSON, MARGARET RICH GREER, BARRY IFE, ALISTAIR MALCOLM, MELVEENA MCKENDRICK, RICHARD J. PYM, HELEN RAWLINGS, ALEXANDER SAMSON, JULES WHICKER
Synopsis
The extent to which contemporary rhetorics of nation and kingship reflected the realities of social, economic and cultural life in Habsburg Spain.
Early modern Spain's insistent rhetorics of nation and kingship, of a monolithic body of shared values and beliefs, especially in respect of racial and gender stereotypes, and of a centralized and ostensibly absolutist legislativeapparatus did not map unproblematically onto the complex topography of everyday life. This volume explores the extent to which these rhetorics and the ideology they helped to construct or underpin reflected or failed to reflect the realities of social, economic, and cultural life. It sets against their typically exorbitant claims the lived, messy, and sometimes contradictory experience of Spaniards across a broad social spectrum, both at the centre and atthe margins, not just of peninsular society, but of the Hispanic world overseas. Confronting ideology were questions of economic pragmatism, executive feasibility, jurisdictional competence, and, above all, the social and political complexity of the Spain of the period.
RICHARD J. PYM is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Contributors: TREVOR J. DADSON, MARGARET RICH GREER, BARRY IFE, ALISTAIR MALCOLM, MELVEENA MCKENDRICK, RICHARD J. PYM, HELEN RAWLINGS, ALEXANDER SAMSON, JULES WHICKER