Holding the World in Balance: the Connected Histories of the Iberian Overseas Empires, 1500–1640
Holding the World in Balance: The Connected Histories of the Iberian Overseas Empires, 1500–1640 SANJAY SUBRAHMANYAM America bores open all her mines, and unearths her silver and her treasure, to hand them over to our own Spain, which enjoys the world’s best in every measure, from Europe, Libya, Asia, by way of San Lu´car, and through Manila, despite the Chinaman’s displeasure. Bernardo de Balbuena, Grandeza mexicana (1604)1 THE EARLY MODERN WORLD WAS FOR THE MOST PART A PATCHWORK of competing and intertwined empires, punctuated by the odd interloper in the form of a nascent “na- tion-state.” At the time of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the real contours of the political map of the world were as follows: from east to west, a China that had just been conquered by the Qing, who would make an expansive push westward; then the vast Mughal Empire, from the hills of Burma to Afghanistan; the Ottoman Empire, whose writ still effectively ran from Basra to Central Europe and Morocco; the Rus- sian Empire, by then extending well into Siberia and parts of Central Asia; the lim- ited rump of the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe; the burgeoning commercial empires of England and the Netherlands in both Asia and America; and, last but not least, the still-extensive spread of the great empires of Spain and Portugal.2 Other states could also make some claim to imperial status, including Munhumutapa in southeastern Africa, the Burma of the Toungoo Dynasty, and Safavid Iran. The cru- cial point, however, is not just that these empires existed, but that they recognized one another, and as a consequence they often borrowed symbols, ideas, and insti- tutions across recognizable boundaries.
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