Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Experiencing Nature : The Spanish American Empire and the Early Scientific Revolution / Antonio Barrera-Osorio.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Austin : University of Texas Press, [2010]Copyright date: 2006Description: 1 online resource (223 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780292795945
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 509.8 22
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- One Searching the Land for Commodities -- Two A Chamber of Knowledge: The Casa de la contratación and its empirical methods -- Three Communities of Experts: artisans and innovation in the new world -- Four Circuits of Information: reports from the new world -- Five Books of Nature: scholars, natural history, and the new world -- Conclusions: The politics of knowledge -- Appendix 1 Pilots and Cosmographers at the Casa de la Contratación -- Appendix 2 Instruments -- Appendix 3 Spanish Scientific Books -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: As Spain colonized the Americas during the sixteenth century, Spanish soldiers, bureaucrats, merchants, adventurers, physicians, ship pilots, and friars explored the natural world, gathered data, drew maps, and sent home specimens of America's vast resources of animals, plants, and minerals. This amassing of empirical knowledge about Spain's American possessions had two far-reaching effects. It overturned the medieval understanding of nature derived from Classical texts and helped initiate the modern scientific revolution. And it allowed Spain to commodify and control the natural resources upon which it built its American empire. In this book, Antonio Barrera-Osorio investigates how Spain's need for accurate information about its American colonies gave rise to empirical scientific practices and their institutionalization, which, he asserts, was Spain's chief contribution to the early scientific revolution. He also conclusively links empiricism to empire-building as he focuses on five areas of Spanish activity in America: the search for commodities in, and the ecological transformation of, the New World; the institutionalization of navigational and information-gathering practices at the Spanish Casa de la Contratación (House of Trade); the development of instruments and technologies for exploiting the natural resources of the Americas; the use of reports and questionnaires for gathering information; and the writing of natural histories about the Americas.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780292795945

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- One Searching the Land for Commodities -- Two A Chamber of Knowledge: The Casa de la contratación and its empirical methods -- Three Communities of Experts: artisans and innovation in the new world -- Four Circuits of Information: reports from the new world -- Five Books of Nature: scholars, natural history, and the new world -- Conclusions: The politics of knowledge -- Appendix 1 Pilots and Cosmographers at the Casa de la Contratación -- Appendix 2 Instruments -- Appendix 3 Spanish Scientific Books -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

As Spain colonized the Americas during the sixteenth century, Spanish soldiers, bureaucrats, merchants, adventurers, physicians, ship pilots, and friars explored the natural world, gathered data, drew maps, and sent home specimens of America's vast resources of animals, plants, and minerals. This amassing of empirical knowledge about Spain's American possessions had two far-reaching effects. It overturned the medieval understanding of nature derived from Classical texts and helped initiate the modern scientific revolution. And it allowed Spain to commodify and control the natural resources upon which it built its American empire. In this book, Antonio Barrera-Osorio investigates how Spain's need for accurate information about its American colonies gave rise to empirical scientific practices and their institutionalization, which, he asserts, was Spain's chief contribution to the early scientific revolution. He also conclusively links empiricism to empire-building as he focuses on five areas of Spanish activity in America: the search for commodities in, and the ecological transformation of, the New World; the institutionalization of navigational and information-gathering practices at the Spanish Casa de la Contratación (House of Trade); the development of instruments and technologies for exploiting the natural resources of the Americas; the use of reports and questionnaires for gathering information; and the writing of natural histories about the Americas.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Aug 2024)