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Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, Volume 1
A Critical Edition
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Edited by:
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With contributions by:
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Preface by:
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2019
About this book
Volume 1 of this critical edition includes a note on the text from the Humboldt in English team, an introduction by editors Vera M. Kutzinski and Ottmar Ette, a preface to the first edition by Alexander von Humboldt, and the translation of Volumes 1 and 2 of Humboldt’s Essai politique sur le royaume de de Nouvelle Espagne from 1825 to 1827.
Alexander von Humboldt was the most celebrated modern chronicler of North and South America and the Caribbean, and this translation of his essay on New Spain—the first modern regional economic and political geography—covers his travels across today’s Mexico in 1803–1804. The work canvases natural-scientific and cultural-scientific objects alike, combining the results of fieldwork with archival research and expert testimony.
To show how people, plants, animals, goods, and ideas moved across the globe, Humboldt wrote in a variety of styles, bending and reshaping familiar writerly conventions to keep readers attentive to new inputs. Above all, he wanted his readers to be open-minded when confronted with cultural and other differences in the Americas. Fueled by his comparative global perspective on politics, economics, and science, he used his writing to support Latin American independence and condemn slavery and other forms of colonial exploitation. It is these voluminous and innovative writings on the New World that made Humboldt the undisputed father of modern geography, early American studies, transatlantic cultural history, and environmental studies.
This two-volume critical edition—the third installment in the Alexander von Humboldt in English series—is based on the full text, including all footnotes, tables, and maps, of the second, revised French edition of Essai politique sur le royaume de de Nouvelle Espagne from 1825 to 1827, which has never been translated into English before. Extensive annotations and full-color atlases are available on the series website.
Alexander von Humboldt was the most celebrated modern chronicler of North and South America and the Caribbean, and this translation of his essay on New Spain—the first modern regional economic and political geography—covers his travels across today’s Mexico in 1803–1804. The work canvases natural-scientific and cultural-scientific objects alike, combining the results of fieldwork with archival research and expert testimony.
To show how people, plants, animals, goods, and ideas moved across the globe, Humboldt wrote in a variety of styles, bending and reshaping familiar writerly conventions to keep readers attentive to new inputs. Above all, he wanted his readers to be open-minded when confronted with cultural and other differences in the Americas. Fueled by his comparative global perspective on politics, economics, and science, he used his writing to support Latin American independence and condemn slavery and other forms of colonial exploitation. It is these voluminous and innovative writings on the New World that made Humboldt the undisputed father of modern geography, early American studies, transatlantic cultural history, and environmental studies.
This two-volume critical edition—the third installment in the Alexander von Humboldt in English series—is based on the full text, including all footnotes, tables, and maps, of the second, revised French edition of Essai politique sur le royaume de de Nouvelle Espagne from 1825 to 1827, which has never been translated into English before. Extensive annotations and full-color atlases are available on the series website.
Author / Editor information
Vera M. Kutzinski is the Martha Rivers Ingram Professor of English and comparative literature and director of the Alexander von Humboldt in English project at Vanderbilt University. Ottmar Ette is chair of Romance literatures at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and the author of many books on Alexander von Humboldt.
Reviews
"Here, at last, is the monumental study of Mexican North America on the brink of independence that changed history and made Humboldt famous. The inimitable Humboldt ranges from Chile to Alaska to the future Panama Canal; from cartography and climate to human migration and tropical disease; from indigenous agriculture to slave plantations; from bananas and manioc to cotton and sugar; from whales and sea otters to cigars, coins, and gunpowder; from Aztec floating gardens to Spanish hydraulic engineering; and from Mexican silver mines to their world-shaking impact on global capitalism—until it seems nothing escapes his probing analysis and often scathing critique. This painstaking, definitive translation of Humboldt’s foundational work, a monument of scientific and humanist investigation into structures of power, conquest, empire, and resistance, belongs on the shelf of every serious scholar of the Americas and every student of modernity. That Humboldt’s great vision was corrupted and betrayed makes this work all the more important for our time."
— Laura Dassow Walls, The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America"This new translation of Humboldt’s Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain is timely, given the growing interest in one of Europe’s last polymaths. It brings to our attention an indispensable but often overlooked opus, which Humboldt had already conceived during his stay in Mexico in 1803–1804. The Essay offers no less than an embarrassment of riches. Humboldt manages to combine in-depth explorations and statistical analyses of Spain’s most prosperous colonial territory with wide-angle views and surprising comparisons. The man from Prussia demonstrates his sensitivity toward the indigenous traditions of the Americas and the variety of natural and cultural spaces he enters, indefatigably absorbing every bit of information. Connecting the dots—between agriculture, silver mining, and transoceanic trade; between climate and plant growth; between the history of the brutal colonization and demographic developments—is Humboldt’s forte. This capacity and Humboldt’s open-mindedness deserve our recognition today. This beautiful new edition will serve not only as an illustration of how modern-style political geography came into existence but also as guide to the multifaceted thinking of a traveler and scholar who transcended cultural divides and borders set by hegemonic powers."
— Andreas W. Daum, State University of New York at Buffalo"This superb new critical edition of Humboldt’s seminal work on Mexico is long overdue. It will become the authoritative edition of the Essai politique. The translators have succeeded in fashioning a text that is alert to the stylistic peculiarities of the original while being readable, clear, and in idiomatic English. This is quite a feat, given the complexity of Humboldt’s phrasing and the hybridity of his writing."
— Alison E. Martin, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz/Germersheim"An avid reader of Humboldt in French, Thomas Jefferson understood that the histories of New Spain (today’s Mexico) and the nascent United States would forever be intertwined. Now, thanks to the extraordinary translating and editing of Kutzinski, Ette, and their team, English-language readers can share Humboldt’s insights in a tour de force translation that is itself Humboldtian in scope."
— Neil Safier, the John Carter Brown Library"This edition of Humboldt’s Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain aims to make the traveler’s works known to an English-speaking public. In their new edition, the translators have created an English text that avoids unnecessary modernizations and maintains Humboldt’s deliberately created structure. Vera Kutzinski and Ottmar Ette’s informative and clear introduction reflects the latest in Humboldt research and will help orient readers interested in Humboldt’s American expedition, particularly in his work on Mexico, which includes the history of the indigenous peoples. This work is an outstanding contribution to current international Humboldt scholarship."
— Ingo Schwarz, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities"Humboldt transitions easily between statistics, physical science and political argumentation in a book whose many passions and perspectives continue to impress the reader two centuries later. This is a wonderful edition of a wonderful book by a wonderful mind that deserves far more attention from historical geographers, historians of science and colonial historians than it has hitherto received. Thanks to the exhaustive work of the project's editorial team, we now have no excuse for neglecting the riches of the Political Essay."
— Journal of Historical Geography“The translation is based on the second, revised French version of 1825-27 and surpasses all previous foreign-language renderings: it is linguistically elegant, does justice to Humboldt’s terminology, and applies great precision in retaining the original tables… This edition constitutes a milestone in the current process of rediscovering the indefatigable researcher from Prussia: it makes a largely forgotten opus accessible and allow us to re-examine Humboldt’s analysis of society.”
— Dynamis"Scholars and students alike owe a debt of gratitude to academics like Kutzinski [and] Ette. . . who draw on research and analytical and linguistic skills to open up access to resources of significant figures in the histories of science and cartography. With full access to the text of the Political History on the Kingdom of New Spain and Humboldt’s manuscript drawings from his American travel diaries, contemporary scholars may voyage as armchair travellers and advance research projects as they rest on the erudition and talents of literary scholars who have studied Alexander von Humboldt and made his oeuvre accessible in form and content to a new generation."
— Imago Mundi"Offers a glimpse of an alternative nineteenth-century tradition that saw intrinsic value in the land and people of the New World... Scholars who persevere through these volumes will discover commentary that dissents from the scientific mainstream, and these passages could function as valuable pedagogical material for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses on science, literature, and colonialism."
— Early American Literature"Vera Kutzinski and Ottmar Ette’s Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain: A Critical Edition, a two-volume translation of Humboldt’s Political Essay, corrects what they label as the 'inaccuracies, capricious alterations, and misrepresentations' in John Black’s 1811 English-language edition. Kutzinski and Ette add a new edition translated from the 1825 second revised French edition (1: p. ix). Published seventeen years later, this second edition captures a shifting society bridging colonial concerns to a republican counterpart."
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Frontmatter
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Contents
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Note on the Text
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All the Bumps in the Road: Alexander von Humboldt’s Mexican Tableau
xi - VOLUME 1
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Editor’s Preface
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Alexander von Humboldt’s Preface to the First Edition
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A Reasoned Analysis of the Atlas of New Spain
13 - Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain
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BOOK I. General Remarks on the Total Area and the Physical Aspect of the Country—The Influence of the Uneveness of the Terrain on Climate, Agriculture, Commerce, and Military Defense
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BOOK II. General Population of New Spain—Division of Its Inhabitants by Caste
197 - VOLUME 2
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BOOK III. Specific Statistics of the Intendancies That Comprise the Kingdom of New Spain—Their Territorial Extent and Population
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BOOK IV. The State of Agriculture in New Spain—Metal Mines
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Chronology
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Editorial Note
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Contributors
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 16, 2020
eBook ISBN:
9780226651415
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780226651415
Keywords for this book
mexico; 1800s; colonial exploitation; slavery; independence; latin america; revolution; colonialism; government; power; control; geography; travel; exploration; culture; nonfiction; history; environmental studies; transatlantic; mineral resources; mines; agriculture; politics; acapulco; veracruz; tenochtitlan; atlantic; south sea; trade; race; creole
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
