How to Write the History of the New World: Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
Cañizares-Esguerra’s book deals with epistemological debates going on during the eighteenth century in Europe and Latin America regarding the New World. It is of monumental proportions in terms of the sheer amount of research that it contains. The author does a thorough job in the introduction of laying out the skeleton of his book and its arguments, along with some of his personal motivations and methodologies. He attaches to each chapter its own argument and body of research, although it is in the last two of the five chapters that he presents his most intriguing point. Cañizares-Esguerra proposes that Spanish America had its very own “Enlightenment” which did not simply mirror European ideas but rather was aggressively modern and creative.
Chapter one, “Toward a New Art of Reading and New Historical Interpretations,” describes a new art of reading that emerges during the mid-eighteenth century. This virtually dismisses all sixteenth and seventeenth century sources because it does not privilege the formerly trusted eye-witnesses or primary sources. Instead, it is proposed that texts should be judged on their internal consistency and not the social standing of authors. Cañizares-Esguerra states that this new art of reading arises along with two similar but distinct entities: the philosophical traveler and philosophical travel compilations. These “philosophes” questioned the greatness of the anterior Aztec and Inca civilizations. Cañizares-Esguerra clearly disapproves of their systematic theories, as can be seen throughout the book when he refers to them as conjectural historians or “armchair philosophers”. He argues that the emergence of this intellectual trend is important because it is then, in the eighteenth century, that our modern and post-modern historiographies are established.
Chapter two, “Changing European Interpretations of the Reliability of Indigenous Sources,” continues to deal with themes of credibility and authority. The author argues that during the Enlightenment Amerindian sources lost their credibility, which was a radical departure from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century historiography such as is discussed in chapter one. Cañizares-Esguerra details how conservative scholars rejected and devalued non-alphabetic scripts because they challenged the authority of the Bible. However, the author notes that European scholars still collected the indigenous sources in order to study the evolution of cultural progress. Moving to the example of a specific country in chapter three, titled “Historiography and Patriotism in Spain,” Cañizares-Esguerra states that it was Spain that took the lead in dismissing earlier sources in order to eagerly create several new academies and archives to reconstruct its own cultural and intellectual identity. This chapter, based mostly on archival sources, demonstrates that Spain had very active scholarship during the eighteenth century within its unique patriotic Enlightenment which largely has been ignored because most written works were not published and therefore still await discovery in the archives. The topic of patriotism in Spain functions well as a transition to the next chapter.
Chapter four, entitled “The Making of a “Patriotic Epistemology,” presents Cañizares-Esguerra’s compelling argument that Spanish America was aware of and strongly criticized the philosophical movement in Europe and aggressively created their own scholarly trend of historiographical renewal, which the author terms as “patriotic epistemology.” This Latin American movement was driven by aristocratic creole clerics and denigrated the credibility and/or interpretive abilities of foreigners and Latin American commoners. As such, many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century narratives were discarded as useless because they had either been misinterpreted by foreigners or unreliably written by commoners. The author then moves into chapter five, “Whose Enlightenment Was It Anyway?”, which elaborates upon the nature of epistemological debates that were going on in Latin America during the eighteenth century. Using specific debates he presents different scholarly styles, argues the influence of the modern Baroque movement, and demonstrates how indigenous symbols were manipulated and interpreted to fit Christian discourse.
In this book, which is at times almost overwhelmingly filled with details and an abundance of information, Cañizares-Esguerra supports two central arguments. The first is that the epistemological debates that typified the eighteenth century Atlantic world did not fade into the background but rather established themselves as the roots of our modern and post-modern historiography. The second is that Spanish America did not merely reflect Europe’s Enlightenment but instead wholly understood the underpinnings of it and actively pursued its own movement by creating a new historiography – patriotic epistemology. Both of these arguments are well supported and demonstrated. The first argument is clearly difficult to question since all historical movements are somehow influenced by former trends. The second argument is, however, refreshingly new and inspires further study with the concept of a Spanish American “Enlightenment” in mind.
In his conclusion, Cañizares-Esguerra relates to his readers not only a brief summary of his arguments but expounds upon why he considers this work to be significant. Similar to what he mentions in his introduction, the author says that he wrote this book with the idea of telling an alternative story to what he believes to be widely held stereotypes of Latin America, adding to the relatively unstudied topic of eighteenth-century Latin America. It may be true that this subject is often glossed over, but I am not entirely convinced of the reasons he gives for why that occurs. He conveys that from the eighteenth century to the present time, Latin America is considered as non-western even by Latin Americans themselves, such as the twentieth century writers who employ the literary technique of magical realism to orientalize the region. In my humble opinion as a literary scholar, I have not come across the universal view of Latin America as non-western and certainly do not consider magical realism to be an orientalist trend. However, even with this concern, Cañizares-Esguerra’s How to Write the History of the New World serves as an invaluable resource that unites an incredible amount of archival research that offers a distinct insight to eighteenth century scholarship of the Atlantic world, specifically Latin America. Any intellectual interested in the field would enjoy and benefit from this book.
