Early Modern Archives

Auteur : Maria Pia Donato (dir.)
Revue : Journal of Early Modern History, 22/5, October 2018
Éditeur : Brill (Leiden)
Date de parution : octobre 2018
Nombre de pages : 110
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In the last decades, a vast body of literature has scrutinized the archive, regarding it as an instrument of power for the Western conquest of the world. More recently, a new, vibrant cultural history of archives has changed our understanding of archives as a fully-fledged historical object and why they matter for extending the geographical scope of history and achieving a more connected image of modernity.

The articles assembled in this themed issue delve into the history of imperial archives and archival practices in the period 1500-1800, bringing together different lines of inquiry. Each contribution focuses on a major Western imperial formation at different epochs in their evolution, dealing both with current records and historical collections ; each engages with archives as an institution, as assemblages of documents that circulated in and out of official depositories, as a site where colonial administrative knowledge was elaborated, and as a political project.