In this book Tamar Herzog explores the emergence of a specifically Spanish concept of community in both Spain and Spanish America in the eighteenth century. Callenging the assumption that communities were the natural result of common factors such as language or religion, or that they were artificially imagined, Herzog reexamines early modern categories of belonging. She argues that the distinction between those who were Spaniards and those who were foreigners came about as local communitites distinguished between immigrants who were judged to be willing to take on the rights and duties of...

This book traces the interplay between the public structuring and regulation of identities and the creative processes of collective identification, appropriation and evasion of identities. It deals with the ways in which individuals and social groups have developed and enacted identities as cultural resources with different degrees of public recognition and political legitimation, and how these identities have had an impact in defining the boundaries of social order and diversity

Having succeeded in establishing themselves in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, Spain and Portugal became the first imperial powers on a worldwide scale in the early 16th century. Although they lost their political primacy in the 17th century, both monarchies survived and enjoyed relative success until the early 19th century. The aim of this collection is to answer the question how and why their cultural and political legacies persist to date. Part I focuses on the construction of the monarchy, examining the ways different territories integrated in the imperial network mainly by...