Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644: Local Comparisons and Global Connections by Birgit Tremml-Werner

Abstract

Reviewed by: Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644: Local Comparisons and Global Connections by Birgit Tremml-Werner George Bryan Souza Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644: Local Comparisons and Global Connections. By Birgit Tremml-Werner. Amsterdam University Press, 2015. 411pages. Hardcover $149.00. Birgit Tremml-Werner is to be congratulated on her ambitious and successful first book, Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644. She ably shows that (1) “politics, culture, and mentality” played “lofty roles” in trade and business relations in the early modern period; that (2) “the dualism between the ‘local’ and the ‘central’ had a major impact on various processes in the South China Sea”; that (3) diplomacy shaped foreign affairs to an unexpected degree through “its manifold features such as language, communication, knowledge gathering, and representation”; and that (4) Manila offered a “special environment” as an “open zone” with multiethnic neighborhoods (pp. 315–17). The study demonstrates the author’s careful attention to organization; a solid command of the evidence and literature; and ample familiarity with the theory and concepts pertaining to a complex set of issues concerning early modern commerce, economic development, and cross-cultural encounters. Tremml-Werner is particularly adept in her handling of Spain and Japan in Asia, which involved synthesizing, incorporating, and engaging research by authors who have published only in Spanish [End Page 403] (for example, Lothar Knauth, Juan Gil Fernandez, and Manel Ollé), as well as works in Japanese, such as Oka Mihoko’s Shōnin to senkyōshi: Nanban bōeki no sekai (Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 2010). The book is divided into four parts comprising eight main chapters, whose titles give a good sense of the scope and nature of the research findings presented. Part 1, entitled “The Setting,” consists of the introduction and chapter 1 (“The Comparative Framework”). Part 2, “Cross-cultural Encounters in the Philippines,” includes chapters titled “The Foundations of a Global Stage” and “The Trilogy of Triangular Trade.” Part 3, “Zooming Out: Local, Central, and Global Connections,” consists of three chapters, “Triangular Foreign Relations,” “Local and Central Dualism,” and “Local and Central Tensions.” The final part of the book is titled “Zooming In: Early Modern Manila and Regional Globalisation” and consists of two main chapters, “Manila as Port City” and “Actors and Agency,” as well as the book’s concluding chapter. Tremml-Werner initially explains that the book is about “the fascinating nature of Manila trade, being the ambiguous product of diverging political and ideological concepts of three powerful pre-modern states” (pp. 16–17). But as her narrative develops, it becomes clear that her views about trade, early modern states, and state formation are quite broad and expansive, perhaps too much so. I understand her rationale for using the state as one of her prisms, but I am not sure that it is always suitable as a conceptual category, or under what conditions it is the best possible or the only category, since during the time period taken up by the book, Ming China was in decline, with the empire under attack by the Manchus, while Tokugawa Japan did not yet exist and a unitary Japanese state was still in the process of being consolidated. Tremml-Werner uses the unusual term “Overseas Spain” to refer to the Spanish empire during its formative period, but I found this usage confusing in the context of colonial or imperial formation. Another small quibble concerns what struck me as her overuse of the terms “trilogy” and “triangle,” which do not seem apt in some of the instances taken up, as some of the political relationships she describes are more highly nuanced than these terms allow—for example the union of the Crowns of Spain and Portugal (a topic that, incidentally, was not discussed as convincingly as I would have liked to have seen) and certain commercial transactions that cannot be categorized as examples of “triangular trade.” This book is based on Tremml-Werner’s doctoral dissertation from the University of Vienna, which was under the supervision of Peer Vries. The author clearly has an impressive command of several languages, particularly Japanese and Spanish (though her references to some Portuguese terms contain minor...