Are pens, gestures, and astrolabes mightier than swords?

Patricia’s Seed’s book was a nice read. My initial reactions to many of her statements ran the full gamut, depending on the situation described, from: “Ok, that makes since, so what.” To Wow, I never really thought about it that way.” She does seem to draw a line between the “mundanities” of the English, the more elaborate and ritualized expressions of possession of the French and Spanish, the intellectual culture of Portugal, and the scriptuous toponyming of the Dutch. I am not so sure that her delineation is fair. She does a great job of laying out the intellectual history of all these ceremonies, I disagree with her separation of the systems of possession. She does try to point out the culturally specific significance of similar acts, it wasn’t always enough for me. While I admit that the English didn’t have anything as regular as the Requirimento, there were definitely legalities and documents involved on a very mundane level. Holes and fences were quite important as she rightly and effectively points out, but they do not utterly define the English experience of conquest. It may simply be because I’m an English historian, but the scene that she portrays as a miscommunication between Queen Elizabeth and the ambassador from Portugal seems not so much an unintentional misunderstanding, but a rational choice to disagree. Another point that she doesn’t seem to tease out is her assertion that these countries were actively and perhaps even to a degree unthinkingly pursuing an association with romanitas. This point is brought out in her conclusion, but is not something she really touches on in the rest of the book.

My blah, blahish complaining aside, I was pleased that I got to read the book. I see it more as a history of the early modern evolution of nationalism in individual European countries than a history of possession. Possession involves the taking of something from another, whether or not they are aware of it. Eventually privation must be noticed in order for there to be a loss. While she duly notes current reactions to these possessings, I wonder, despite its difficulty, whether or not a reading of indigenous sources might have strengthened her argument. Again though this isn’t really her project, but just a thought I had. In her defense though, I think she rightly points out, these ceremonies have less to do with indigenous denizens of the Americas, than affirming social structures of the colonizers. There is not a lot of room for cultural plagiarism in this book which does make me wonder if this book would look similar is a place like colonial China, where, if I remember correctly, so many European spheres of influence overlapped regularly. Her book was also fun in that it was well paced. Since each of her chapters stands alone, I was able to stay pretty well attached to the book.