Iberian Visions of the Pacific Ocean, 1507-1899 [Hardcover]

In this work, Buschmann incorporates neglected Spanish visions into the European perceptions of the emerging Pacific world. The book argues that Spanish diplomats and intellectuals attempted to create an intellectual link between the Americas and the Pacific Ocean.Introduction 1. On Shrinking Continents and Expanding Oceans 2. On Chronometers, Cartography, and Curiosity 3. On Narrating the Pacific 4. On Useful Information 5. On History and Hydrography 6. On the Rediscovery of the Americas Epilogue: On the Lingering Spanish Lake Bibliography Endnotes

In Iberian Visions of the Pacific Ocean, 15071899, Rainer F. Buschmann provides a valuable, well-informed, and stimulating essay on Spanish responses to these changes from the early sixteenth century onward. & The author masters the literature impressively, reads accurately the sources he uses, and wields their evidence perceptively, informatively, and sometimes vividly. (Felipe Fern?ndez-Armesto, American Historical Review, Vol. 121 (4), October, 2016)

Iberian Visions of the Pacific Ocean is a very ambitious project, encompassing nearly half a millennium of Pacific visions when the ocean was not even a figment in most peoples imaginations. & Iberian Visions offers an incisive political history that documents closely the debates arising from the growing interest in the area. & especially interesting for political historians and those seeking information about the legality of conquest and colonialism, extending our knowledge of the political backdrop of European imperial rivalries. (Mercedes Camino, The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 50 (2), May, 2015)

Rainer F. Buschmann is professor and founding faculty member of history at the California State University Channel Islands, USA. He has formerly taught at Hawaii Pacific University and Purdue University, USA. He has written extensively on the European interactions with the Pacific Ocean. &ll�