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A comprehensive study of the New Christian elite of Jewish origin,
prominent traders, merchants, bankers and men of letters between
the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries The New Christian elite of
Jewish origin were at the forefront of early modern globalisation
from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Either forced to
convert to Christianity or descended from those who were, these
Iberian traders, merchants, and bankers with links to the academic
world and liberal professions, played a pivotal role in
intercontinental trade for two centuries—only to decline, and
virtually disappear as an ethnic elite, by the mid-1700s. In
Strangers Within, Francisco Bethencourt offers a comprehensive
study of the New Christian trading elite, describing their many
achievements, innovations and migrations. Members of this new elite
were instrumental in opening global trade, investing in plantations
and industries and loaning money to kings, popes, cardinals,
noblemen and religious orders. They lived under constant threat of
the Inquisition for almost three hundred years, yet most of them
stayed in the Iberian world. Others departed to create Sephardic
communities in north Africa, the Ottoman Empire, northern Europe
and the Americas. Drawing on new research in archives and research
libraries in Lisbon, Madrid, Seville, Simancas, Rome, Florence,
Antwerp, London and Lima, Bethencourt traces the international
networks New Christian trading elite families built, the different
religious allegiances they assumed and the wide range of places in
which they carried on their business activities. He describes the
prominent roles they played in Iberian and European culture: Saint
Teresa de Avila had a New Christian background, as had the
philosopher Spinoza. Despite their prominence, after three
centuries, the New Christians disappeared as a recognizable
ethnicity, finally bowing under the accumulated weight of racism
and persecution.
Global social inequality has declined over the past 100 years and
the gap between different parts of the world, measured by average
lifespan, has narrowed. The internal gap between wealthy and poor
in the western world has likewise reduced, from the 1930s to the
1970s, although not in a linear way. The 1980s represented a
turning point in developed countries, as the top 0.1% of income
earners accumulated extraordinary riches. This new trend did not
subside with the financial crisis of 2008, but expanded to less
developed areas of the world; indeed, long-term significant
reduction of poverty is now considered vulnerable. Inequality of
income and its associated impacts has triggered a passionate debate
between those who maintain that an unequal accumulation of richness
is crucial for economic and social progress and those who believe
that it does not encourage investment and that it prevents
increased demand, thus negatively affecting the economy. This
contributed volume sets out to study social inequality in
Portuguese-speaking countries, thus providing diversification of
experience across different continents. The purpose is to identify
major economic, historical and cultural developments in terms of
education, health, life-cycle, gender, ethnic, and religious
relations. The current realities of migration are also addressed,
since they raise the issue of ethnic integration. This is the first
published work to address inequality in a cross-continent yet same
language perspective, and presents a striking advance in the global
study of inequality.
Racisms is the first comprehensive history of racism, from the
Crusades to the twentieth century. Demonstrating that there is not
one continuous tradition of racism, Francisco Bethencourt shows
that racism preceded any theories of race and must be viewed within
the prism and context of social hierarchies and local conditions.
In this richly illustrated book, Bethencourt argues that in its
various aspects, all racism has been triggered by political
projects monopolizing specific economic and social resources.
Racisms focuses on the Western world, but opens comparative views
on ethnic discrimination and segregation in Asia and Africa.
Bethencourt looks at different forms of racism, and explores
instances of enslavement, forced migration, and ethnic cleansing,
while analyzing how practices of discrimination and segregation
were defended. This is a major interdisciplinary work that moves
away from ideas of linear or innate racism and recasts our
understanding of interethnic relations.
Groundbeaking in its global and historical scope, "Racisms" is
the first comprehensive history of racism, from the Crusades to the
twentieth century. Demonstrating that there is not one continuous
tradition of racism in the West, distinguished historian Francisco
Bethencourt shows that racism preceded any theories of race and
must be viewed within the prism and context of social hierarchies
and local conditions. In this richly illustrated book, Bethencourt
argues that in its various aspects, all racism has been triggered
by political projects monopolizing specific economic and social
resources.
Bethencourt focuses on the Western world, but opens comparative
views on ethnic discrimination and segregation in Asia and Africa.
He looks at different forms of racism, particularly against New
Christians and Moriscos in Iberia, black slaves and freedmen in
colonial and postcolonial environments, Native Americans, Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire, and Jews in modern Europe. Exploring
instances of enslavement, forced migration, and ethnic cleansing,
Bethencourt reflects on genocide and the persecution of ethnicities
in twentieth-century Europe and Anatolia. These cases are compared
to the genocide of the Herero and Tutsi in Africa, and ethnic
discrimination in Japan, China, and India. Bethencourt analyzes how
practices of discrimination and segregation from the sixteenth to
the nineteenth centuries were defended, and he systematically
integrates visual culture into his investigation.
Moving away from ideas of linear or innate racism, this is a
major interdisciplinary work that recasts our understanding of
interethnic relations.
Issue 30:1 of Portuguese Studies for 2014
How did racism evolve in different parts of the Portuguese-speaking
world? How should the impact on ethnic perceptions of colonial
societies based on slavery or the slave trade be evaluated? What
was the reality of inter-ethnic mixture in different continents?
How has the prejudice of white supremacy been confronted in Brazil
and Portugal? And how should we assess the impact of recent trends
of emigration and immigration? These are some of the major
questions that have structured this book. It both contextualises
and challenges the visions of Gilberto Freyre and Charles Boxer,
which crystallised from the 1930s to the 1960s, but which still
frame the public history of this topic. It studies crucial issues,
including recent affirmative action in Brazil or Afro-Brazilian
literature, blackness in Brazil compared with Colombia under the
dynamics of identity, recent racist trends in Portugal in
comparative perspective, the status of native people in colonial
Portuguese Africa, discrimination against forced Jewish converts to
Christianity and their descendants in different historical
contexts, the status of mixed-race people in Brazil and Angola
compared over the longue duree, the interference of Europeans in
East Timor's native marriage system, the historical policy of
language in Brazil, or visual stereotypes and the
proto-ethnographic gaze in early perceptions of East African
peoples. The book covers the gamut of inter-ethnic experiences
throughout the Portuguese-speaking world, from the sixteenth
century to the present day, integrating contributions from history,
sociology, social psychology, anthropology, literary, and cultural
studies. It offers a radical updating of both empirical data and
methodologies, and aims to contribute to current debates on racism
and ethnic relations in global perspective.
This book studies the history, literature and culture of
Portuguese-speaking countries through the lens of utopia. The role
of utopia in Portuguese literature is the object of fresh analyses
ranging from Camoes to Goncalo M. Tavares, and Antonio Vieira to
Jose Saramago. The chapters on Angola and Mozambique show how
national identity received a major boost through utopian literature
- Pepetela is the anchor in the former case, while dance is used as
a crucial metaphor to reveal the tension between the colonial and
postcolonial gaze in the latter case. The visions of paradise in
Tupi tradition and missionary doctrine inform the approach to
Brazil, developed by the study of the utopian dimension of the
revolts of Canudos and Contestado. Regional contrasts and the quest
for Brazilian national identity underlie the chapter on the cinema
of Glauber Rocha and Walter Salles. These political and cultural
acts can be compared to the strange case of Sebastianism in
Portugal, here studied across four centuries of adaptation and
transformation. Anarchist, Communist and Catholic political
projects are analysed in the context of the early twentieth century
to complete this evaluation of the uses and effects of utopian
visions in these countries.
First published in 2007, this volume explores the importance of
correspondence and communication to cultural exchanges in early
modern Europe. Leading historians examine the correspondence of
scholars, scientists, spies, merchants, politicians, artists,
collectors, noblemen, artisans, and even illiterate peasants.
Geographically the volume ranges across the whole of Europe,
occasionally going beyond its confines to investigate exchanges
between Europe and Asia or the New World. Above all, it studies the
different networks of exchange in Europe and the various functions
and meanings that correspondence had for members of different
strata in European society during the early age of printing. This
entails looking at different material supports from manuscripts and
printed letters to newsletters and at different types of exchanges
from the familial, scientific and artistic to political and
professional correspondence. This is a ground-breaking reassessment
of the status of information in early modern Europe and a major
contribution to the field of information and communication.
The Inquisition was the most powerful disciplinary institution in
the early modern world, responsible for 300,000 trials and over 1.5
million denunciations. How did it root itself in different social
and ethnic environments? Why did it last for three centuries? What
cultural, social and political changes led to its abolition? In
this first global comparative study, Francisco Bethencourt examines
the Inquisition's activities in Spain, Italy, Portugal and overseas
Iberian colonies. He demonstrates that the Inquisition played a
crucial role in the Catholic Reformation, imposing its own members
in papal elections, reshaping ecclesiastical hierarchy, defining
orthodoxy, controlling information and knowledge, influencing
politics and framing daily life. He challenges both traditionalist
and revisionist perceptions of the tribunal. Bethencourt shows the
Inquisition as an ever evolving body, eager to enlarge jurisdiction
and obtain political support to implement its system of values, but
also vulnerable to manipulation by rulers, cardinals, and local
social elites.
A unique overview of Portuguese oceanic expansion between 1400 and
1800, the essays in this volume treat a wide range of subjects -
economy and society, politics and institutions, cultural
configurations and comparative dimensions - and radically update
data and interpretations on the economic and financial trends of
the Portuguese Empire. Interregional networks are analysed in a
substantial way. Patterns of settlement, political configurations,
ecclesiastical structures, and local powers are put in global
context. Language and literature, the arts, and science and
technology are revisited with refreshing and innovative approaches.
The interaction between Portuguese and local people is studied in
different contexts, while the entire imperial and colonial culture
of the Portuguese world is looked at synthetically for the first
time. In short, this book provides a broad understanding of the
Portuguese Empire in its first four centuries as a factor in world
history and as a major component of European expansion.
First published in 2007, this volume explores the importance of
correspondence and communication to cultural exchanges in early
modern Europe. Leading historians examine the correspondence of
scholars, scientists, spies, merchants, politicians, artists,
collectors, noblemen, artisans, and even illiterate peasants.
Geographically the volume ranges across the whole of Europe,
occasionally going beyond its confines to investigate exchanges
between Europe and Asia or the New World. Above all, it studies the
different networks of exchange in Europe and the various functions
and meanings that correspondence had for members of different
strata in European society during the early age of printing. This
entails looking at different material supports from manuscripts and
printed letters to newsletters and at different types of exchanges
from the familial, scientific and artistic to political and
professional correspondence. This is a ground-breaking reassessment
of the status of information in early modern Europe and a major
contribution to the field of information and communication.
A unique overview of Portuguese oceanic expansion between 1400 and
1800, the essays in this volume treat a wide range of subjects -
economy and society, politics and institutions, cultural
configurations and comparative dimensions - and radically update
data and interpretations on the economic and financial trends of
the Portuguese Empire. Interregional networks are analysed in a
substantial way. Patterns of settlement, political configurations,
ecclesiastical structures, and local powers are put in global
context. Language and literature, the arts, and science and
technology are revisited with refreshing and innovative approaches.
The interaction between Portuguese and local people is studied in
different contexts, while the entire imperial and colonial culture
of the Portuguese world is looked at synthetically for the first
time. In short, this book provides a broad understanding of the
Portuguese Empire in its first four centuries as a factor in world
history and as a major component of European expansion.
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