Frictions in the Atlantic World: Spain and the Americas from the 16th- to the 18th-Centuries

The encounter between the Iberian kingdom of Castille and the Americas sparked off one of the richest and most complex periods in modern history. In this course, we will be studying the dramatic transformation of those two worlds in a theater familiar to us today as “the Spanish Atlantic World”. Through the reading and discussion of memoirs, diaries, letters, and political texts as well as historical writings this period will be analyzed. (1 unit)

Required text: A selection of excerpts from the following authors: Miguel León Portilla, Códices: los antiguos libros del Nuevo Mundo (Mexico: Aguilar, 2003); John H. Elliott, Imperios del mundo atlántico: España y Gran Bretaña en América (Madrid: Taurus, 2006); J. Cañizares-Esguerra, Católicos y puritanos en la colonización de América (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2008); Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, La crisis de la monarquía (Barcelona: Crítica / Marcial Pons, 2009).