An Aqueous Territory: Sailor Geographies and New Granada's Transimperial Greater Caribbean World - Softcover

Bassi, Ernesto

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822362406 ISBN 13: 9780822362401

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2017

Synopsis

In An Aqueous Territory Ernesto Bassi traces the configuration of a geographic space he calls the transimperial Greater Caribbean between 1760 and 1860. Focusing on the Caribbean coast of New Granada (present-day Colombia), Bassi shows that the region's residents did not live their lives bounded by geopolitical borders. Rather, the cross-border activities of sailors, traders, revolutionaries, indigenous peoples, and others reflected their perceptions of the Caribbean as a transimperial space where trade, information, and people circulated, both conforming to and in defiance of imperial regulations. Bassi demonstrates that the islands, continental coasts, and open waters of the transimperial Greater Caribbean constituted a space that was simultaneously Spanish, British, French, Dutch, Danish, Anglo-American, African, and indigenous. Exploring the "lived geographies" of the region's dwellers, Bassi challenges preconceived notions of the existence of discrete imperial spheres and the inevitable emergence of independent nation-states while providing insights into how people envision their own futures and make sense of their place in the world.

About this title

Review:

"This clearly written book, and its concept of an aqueous territory, offers as much to scholars of the British and French Caribbean as it does to those who study Latin America."--Adrian Finucane"Hispanic American Historical Review" (02/01/2018)

"An Aqueous Territory provides a valuable addition to Atlantic as well as Caribbean historiography, managing to address a wide variety of themes and topics in a fairly slender volume. The methodologies that Bassi employs and the painstaking detail with which he recreates sailor geographies will be of interest to readers seeking to learn more about transimperial networks, maritime spaces, and the ways in which mariners conceived of geographic space."-- (06/27/2017)

"By highlighting alternative geographies, Bassi upends traditional nation-state historiography. . . . The book is a welcome addition to historical monographs examining the greater Caribbean basin."-- (11/01/2017)

"Bassi's transimperial greater Caribbean allows for new and valuable perspectives that specialists and advanced graduate students should read. Highly recommended."-- (07/01/2017)

"An interesting tour d'horizon of the conceptual and material worlds of the inhabitants of Spanish colonial New Granada and its independent successor states. . . . An Aqueous Territory is a sophisticated tour of a world whose inhabitants might have taken a different historical trajectory, who might have forged different polities. Although the author stops short of offering an alternative history, readers are left in little doubt that the material presented in this interesting book would provide an excellent basis for one."-- (09/01/2017)

"A book based upon excellent use of multiple, and often ignored, archival holdings that provokes one to think deeply about the categories and changing dimensions of space, time, environmental contexts, and cultural perspectives. We warmly welcome Ernesto Bassi to the sub-?eld of historical geography."-- (01/10/2018)

"Ernesto Bassi's imaginative approach, rich primary sources, and provocative challenge to long-standing disciplinary boundaries allow historians to better comprehend the entanglements between Colombia, the islands of the Caribbean, and the world beyond."--Edgardo Pérez Morales"Canadian Journal of History" (07/27/2018)

"Impressively rich and detailed. . . . [Bassi's] use of ideas of space and social geography, his concept of 'hidden harbors' that deeply influenced the perception of the Atlantic, and his theory of the Transimperial Greater Caribbean will prompt historians of the entire region, from Latin Americanists to Caribbeanists and colonial Americanists in particular, to engage with new theoretical frameworks to ground their own theses."-- (08/28/2017)

"A refreshing perspective of the Caribbean. . . . [Bassi] astutely shows the ways various historical actors developed 'mental maps' . . . He also does an excellent job showcasing the multiethnic diversity of this maritime Caribbean world. . . . An Aqueous Territory should be a must-read on the syllabi of graduate seminars on Atlantic, Caribbean, Latin America, and even maritime histories."-- (11/01/2018)

"[An Aqueous Territory] will be read usefully and with pleasure by scholars interested in more topics than those raised by Ernesto Bassi's central arguments alone. . . . Ambitious on every level: theoretical, geographical, and chronological. . . . Scholars . . . will find rich pickings among Bassi's careful research and provocative interpretations."-- (06/01/2018)

About the Author:

Ernesto Bassi is Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0822362406
• ISBN 13: 9780822362401
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360