Historiographical Knowledge Research Articles

Date of death of Bajo Nikolic Pivljanin and the Battle at Vrtijeljka

Proceeding from the existing historiographic knowledge and the newly found results of archival research, several important data related to Bajo Nikolic Pivljanin are considered. On the basis of an archival document preserved in the Museo Correr Library (Venice) it is established that the date of death of the famous haiduk is 4 May 1685, therefore it is proposed to date the Battle at Vrtijeljka in that time context as well.

Dragisa Stojadinovic’s Open letter regarding Miroslav Krleza’s “Serbian themes”

This article examines the reaction of Dragisa Stojadinovic to the feuilleton ?Serbian themes? done by the writer Miroslav Krleza. Krleza?s feuilleton was being published in newspaper Politika during April, May and June of 1963. It consisted of fragments from his earlier writings organized in thematic units and concerning different topics from Serbian history. Dragisa Stojadinovic, former soldier, chief of Cinematographic section of Serbian army on Salonica front during the First World War and politician in interwar Yugoslavia, responded to Krleza?s feuilleton by writting an Open letter to the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (Zagreb), the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Belgrade) and the Matica Srpska (Novi Sad). Stojadinovic?s Open letter was sent on June 28th, 1963. It focused on scrutinizing Krleza?s article Pasic about the Salonika trial published in Politika on June 9th. Both informations stated by Krleza and criticism put forward by Stojadinovic are analyzed in the light of contemporary historiographical knowledge. Different interpretations presented by Krleza and Stojadinovic have their roots in opposed views on causes and results of Salonika trial. Stojadinovic defended the legitimacy of trial started by his father-in-law Ljuba Jovanovic Patak, he was involved in its organisation and later accused of witness tampering. Krleza saw trial in the light of ?counter-revolutionary? Yugoslav unification in 1918 and as an act of ?political and judicial murder?. Article also contains original documents from National Library of Serbia.

Muslim Jizya Payers in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire

This paper aims to deconstruct the traditional narratives on the Ottoman financial and political strategies towards non-Muslim and Muslim subjects in the Western Balkans by re-examining the foundation, extent and consequences of the central government’s policy of demanding a payment of jizya tax not only from non-Muslims, as stipulated in the classical Sharia law, but from the Muslim population as well. Although academic community is aware of the ex­istence of Muslim jizya payers in several regions of the Ottoman Empire, this paper argues that historiographic knowledge on the mentioned phenomenon is rather rudimentary as present studies on this topic are based on a very limited data while official financial records that contain information on Muslim jizya payers, such as the jizya registers from the Ottoman Bosnia, have still not beenthoroughly analysed. Recognizing the need to include financial records into the account, the main research strategy of this paper was to identify and examine records of jizya payers which contain a significant number of Muslims in a taxpayer role as well as to compare and interpret this data with other financial, administrative and legal texts that could help us gain better insight into the phe­nomenon of Muslim jizya payers in the Ottoman practice. The main primary source for the analysis provided in this study was a register of jizya payers from the vilayet of Brod, in central parts of the Ottoman Bosnia, from the 1679, which have not been previously used in historiographic studies. On the basis of this financial register, it has been concluded that more that 90% of all jizya payers in the territory covered in the mentioned register were Muslims, which is an important and interesting fact that has still not been recorded in any other part of the Ottoman Empire. After identifying the historical background of Muslim jizya payer phenomenon in Bosnia, this case study explains its connec­tion with broader political and financial practices of the Ottoman authorities, as well as its relation with the Islamic legal tradition. Furthermore, the study uses the data from primary sources to additionally deconstruct the narrative that only Christians and Jews paid the jizya in Ottoman Empire, as well as it re-examines the validity and shortcomings of an old historiographic notion that jizya should be considered a primary reason in explaining why massive process of conversion to Islam took place in the Early Modern Ottoman Bosnia.

Українська діаспора в Канаді: історіографічний огляд

Introduction. Historiographical research of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada remains one of the crucial tasks of researchers of national history. This task became particularly relevant with the declaration of independence of Ukraine in 1991 and the completion of the main institutionalization of the diaspora. Purpose. The article aims to systematize available historiographical knowledge of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada, accrued by scholars of the diaspora itself, as well as Ukrainian, Western and Russian researchers.  Results. The holistic picture of the Ukrainian diaspora includes politica, legal, institutional socio-economic, cultural, and religious aspects. A comprehensive analysis of historiography allows us to affirm that overall successful preservation by the diaspora in Canada its national identity is complicated by the growth of globalization. The peculiarity of studying the history of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada during the pre-state period was the dominance of the works of foreign Ukrainians and the formation of the Western historiography of the problem. At the same time scientists of the diaspora, researchers in Ukraine, historians of Russia, and the Western World were studying the history of the Ukrainian community in Canada. Overall, diaspora studies that were published in the state period can be divided into those devoted directly to the diaspora in Canada and reveal questions of its genesis and originality, and studies that analyze the Ukrainian diaspora in general. However, little attention has been paid to this topic for the last two decades. Originality. The concept of the diaspora as an institutionalized ethnonational community itself has been clarified. The conclusion on the fundamental development of the history of the Ukrainian diaspora in the 1890s - early 2000s was substantiated. Conclusion. A review of the available scientific literature testifies to the deep and multifaceted development of the history of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. The scientists found out the main stages and trends of its evolution which include institutional strengthening of the diaspora and preservation of Ukrainians’ Canadian national identity. Naturally, the holistic picture of the Ukrainian diaspora was reproduced by national and foreign researchers mainly in the period between the 1890s and 1990s. At the same time, the modern diaspora continues to change dynamically, and thus requires comprehensive study. Among the promising areas of study of the problem are regional specifics of the diaspora, everyday life of Ukrainians in Canada, the transformation of their mentality, and biographical research.

Geostrategic Position of Bosnian Banovina at the End of the 12th Century

This research includes the most important geographical maps preserved to date, which show a noticeable delay in mapping the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is not different situation even with the other countries in the near and far interior. From the presented and analyzed cartographic works, it is noticeable that Bosnia is represented only on the map of Cardinal Nikolaus von Kues. On this map Bosnia is highlighted as the Kingdom of Bosnia, with the note that what historiographical knowledge implies by that Kingdom is not fully shown. Essentially, all other maps represent only the Banovina of Bosnia of the great Ban Kulin. It is not difficult to see that Francesco Rosselli's map from the end of the 16th century had an impressive number of mapped diverse geographical materials, including textual markings of the borders of "his" Bosnia. On Martin Waldseemüller's map from 1513, the name of Bosnia stands out in the title for the first time. Taken as a whole, the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, even at such an early time, proved to be geostrategically extremely important, as a dividing line between the West, to which it has always belonged, and the East, which began on the right bank of the river Drina. The basis of this statement is the year 1054 and the schism within the church. Bosnia was and remains with the Roman church and the pope. Therefore, the great Kingdom of Hungary had the last geostrategic defensive bastion in medieval Bosnia against the Byzantine Empire and their subject states. In the end, it can be concluded that Bosnia of the great Ban Kulin was really very spacious, respectable in terms of military strength and economically quite advanced. It will be the basis for future Bosnian rulers, especially Tvrtko the 1st.

Writing History in a Globalising World

This paper examines the challenges and methodological concerns which stand before historians wishing to engage in the endeavour of writing history in an increasingly globalising world of research and education which is interconnected and interdependent today more than ever before. Having in mind these challenges, it argues that the future of the discipline lies in a constant reassessment of dominant paradigms, historiographic narratives, primary and secondary sources, scholarly methods, but, more importantly, ourselves, our own cultural and social values, as well as of the disciplinary boundaries and limits of knowledge. Together with examining the mentioned challenges, this paper specifically pays attention to the future of writing history of the Western Balkans in the global era, particularly the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whilst it also critically reassesses the current level of knowledge in the English-speaking world on the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Furthermore, the authors of this paper argue that the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina is being increasingly integrated in the global academic landscape, whilst simultaneously pointing out to the issues which still lie ahead of researchers. The purpose of this paper on the future of writing history in a globalising world was to provide a context for twelve scholarly articles published in the special issue of Journal of the Faculty of Philosophy (History, History of Arts, Archaeology), Vol. 7, No. 2, 2020, as well as to point out to the ways these articles might fit into the global repositories of the historiographic knowledge.

The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Methodology and Research Prospects

This review analyses The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Terms and Ideas, a monograph written by Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz. The work describes the main concepts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s political language between 1569 and 1795. The study is mostly based on political literature, i. e. theoretical treatises and works devoted to relevant issues of the political life of the state. The author makes an attempt to create her own methodological approach, which consists of describing the political discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by analysing its basic concepts, i. e. “Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”, “law”, “freedom”, “forma mixta” and “separation of powers”, “consent”, “virtue”, “patriotism”, and “ancientry”. The scholar notes the small role that the concepts of “sovereignty”, “state”, and “property” played in political discourse. The reviewer compliments the wide range of literature used by the author and the high level of generalisations, due to which the work is a successful attempt at synthesising existing historiographic knowledge. At the same time, the reviewer points out further prospects for studying the issue: the application of a comparative approach, consideration of the context of ancient thought, analysis of differences in the political language in various parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the evolution of political discourse, as well as a significant expansion of the research base.

Giants in the lab: Model conservation and the anaphoric progression of design

How is an architectural model consolidated and re-assembled in conservation to be able to continue to communicate a design concept? How does the work of care and preservation of models reveal knowledge about the often taken-for-granted dynamics of creative processes? To provide answers, this article draws on Etienne Souriau’s philosophy of creativity and follows how the ‘modes of existence’ of creative works are re-enacted in the anaphoric progression of conservation. Basing her findings on ethnography at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the author examines the epistemic complexity of specific situations of assessing, preserving and assembling large complex scale models. Unpacking the specificity of model conservation, it is argued, allows us to challenge two established beliefs on creativity: the myth of the stable ontology of historically valuable cultural objects and the myth of teleology of creative processes. Conservation-in-action demonstrates the subtle mechanics of crafting historiographic knowledge in the arts.

“El orden del saber histórico en materiales educativos digitales”

Las transformaciones de la cultura digital trajeron a las aulas materiales educativos en los que se combinan códigos verbales, icónicos fijos o en movimiento y sonidos. El artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación que puso en el centro a los materiales escolares digitales que circulan en las clases de historia. Cuál es el orden del saber histórico que se pone en juego en ellos es el eje de análisis desplegado en cuatro dimensiones: saber historiográfico; vínculos entre historia y pedagogía; autorías; formatos. Una indagación necesaria para comprender los nuevos rumbos que se perfilan en la enseñanza de la historia.

ПОВЕРЯЯ ЧУЖОЕ НАСТОЯЩЕЕ СОБСТВЕННЫМ ПРОШЛЫМ (К ВОПРОСУ О СТАНОВЛЕНИИ ЭМИГРАНТСКОГО ИСТОРИОГРАФИЧЕСКОГО НАРРАТИВА)

The article analyzes the historiographic texts of the first wave of Russian émigré historians. In these texts, the Soviet historiographic process of the 1920s and 1930s was interpreted. The relevance of the study is associated both with the poor study of historiographic texts created during that period in emigration, and with the narrative turn of modern historical science, as well as with the experience of understanding the structure and nature of the Soviet narrative, which is beginning to be comprehended and problematized as an independent problem. The study of narratives makes it possible to move away from general assessments of the Soviet stage of historical studies to a more specific description of it through studying the stylistics of the text, isolating the standards and the uniqueness of their construction, with close attention to the problems of their unification. This process can be clarified and refined through the prism of the “emigre mirror”. The source base was the historiographic texts of P.N. Milyukov, A.A. Kizevetter, A.V. Florovsky, and E.F. Maksimovich in the form of published works and manuscript heritage from the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAN) and the Slavic Library in Prague (Slovanská knihovna v Praze). Based on textual analysis and developments in the field of intellectual history, the author highlights the unifying features of the émigré narrative. These include: 1) scholars’ understanding of their special mission in emigration which consists of preserving the historiographic tradition and presenting Russian historical science to the world community as part of world science; 2) close attention to the classics, focus on tradition; 3) an assessment of the historiographic process within the framework of the reference time, the Golden age of pre-revolutionary historical science (late 19th – early 20th centuries); the criterion for assessing the current historiographic process was the compliance with the experience of Moscow and St. Petersburg scientific schools; 4) a statement about the lack of freedom of research, the monopoly of Marxist methodology and the hypertrophied class approach in relation to the historicist views of historians; 5) changes in the form and structure of the classic narrative – the proportion of reviews, literature reviews, obituaries in the structure of emigrant narrative was increasing; the deconstruction of the old narrative followed the path of its archaization; 6) the unifying factor that tightened the texts, gave them tension and a special emotional charge, was the figure of M.N. Pokrovsky. However, the verification of the current historiographic process by one’s own past is not without contradictions. On the one hand, this ensures the continuity of historiographic knowledge and confirms the thesis of the intrinsic value of the so-called «outdated innovations». In addition, in this В. П. Корзун 54 regard, we can talk about the fundamental eclecticism of science as a cultural tradition. On the other hand, the reciprocating nature is fraught with a closure on the old. The absolutization of tradition leads to the blocking of intellectual transfers. In science of science, this process is called the rut effect. As an example of searching for «one’s own track», the article presents an attempt by A.V. Florovsky to understand and to clarify the phenomenon of Soviet historiography by coarsening the classical historiographic approach and using the inventory-registration method. As a result, he managed to present the meaningful complexity of the internal structure of Soviet historical science

QUE LIBERDADE? UMA ANÁLISE DA CRIMINALIZAÇÃO DAS SERVIDORAS DOMÉSTICAS CARIOCAS (1880-1930)

Resumo O presente artigo propõe uma discussão que articula diversas áreas dos saberes historiográficos: a história do crime, dos mundos do trabalho, e do gênero. Ao propor tal tarefa, pretendemos analisar o processo de criminalização do serviço doméstico, sobretudo de suas trabalhadoras, pensando em uma perspectiva interseccional, ao analisar como raça, classe e gênero foram decisivos para a consolidação de estigmas disseminados pela imprensa carioca de fins do século XIX e princípios do XX.

Citations from Theodor Lepner’s “Prūsų lietuvis” in Simonas Daukantas work “Būdas senovės lietuvių, kalnėnų ir žemaičių”

[full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English]
 This article analyses the citations from the ethnographic study “Der Preuſche Littauer” (1744; later cited as PL) by the Prussian priest Theodor Lepner which appear in the work of Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) “BUDĄ Senowęs–Lëtuwiû Kalnienû ir Ƶámajtiû ĩszraszę […] Jokyb’s Łaukys” (later cited as “Būdas”).
 The object of this article is the 31 references to PL in S. Daukantas’s “Būdas”. Looking at the previous scholarly research on “Būdas” and its sources along with the subsequent questions they pose, this article formulates a goal to research the methods with which PL source citations were presented in Būdas. This goal was completed by setting and meeting the following tasks: 1) to determine the importance of PL as a source for S. Daukantas’s research into the history of Lithuanian culture; 2) to exhibit S. Daukantas’s use of citations instead of research into firsthand sources and 3) to discuss the reliability and fidelity with which these citations and references are presented. In order to analyze the text, this article employs the following methods: comparative analysis; textology; intertextuality.
 By examining these citations and references, it was discovered that Daukantas encountered this text indirectly sometime between 1818 and 1825 when he was writing his first history “Darbay senuju Lituwiu yr Zemaycziu” (around 1822–1825). This article determines that Daukantas found these quotations from Lepner’s book in Martin L. Rhesa’s addenddum (“Anmerkungen”) of “Das Jahr in vier Geſängen” (1818). Daukantas used this addenddum to recite Lepner in his second historical work “Istorija Žemaitiška” (1831–1834). Later he found the fragments of Lepner’s “Der Preuſche Littauer” in one of his most important sources – Johannes Voigt’s “Geschichte Preußens” (Bd. 1, 1827). Daukantas had used this book by Voigt to recite an older source several times before. This article demonstrates that Daukantas used Voigt’s book to recite the fragments of Matthäus Prätorius’s (c.1635–c.1704) „Deliciae Prussicae, oder Preussische Schaubühne“ manuscript. It somewhat changes the previous opinion about Daukantas’s comprehensive historiographical knowledge, diminishing his image as a researcher familiar with many of the old or primary sources.
 This article concludes that Daukantas read “Der Preuſche Littauer” around 1836 or 1837 when he was already residing in Saint Petersburg.
 The quotes from “Der Preuſche Littauer” contained in Daukantas’s Būdas are grouped according to the nature of their textual integration. “Būdas” contains 31 quotes and references from “Der Preuſche Littauer”. None of the citations from “Der Preuſche Littauer” that Daukantas had used were distinguished with quotation marks or a different font, and they could only be recognized from their content. Quite often, Daukantas quotes “Der Preuſche Littauer” in several sentences without marking the beginning of the quotation and giving the indication only at the endof the sentence using small letters with brackets, eg.: a), b), c), e), d). Daukantas quite accurately reproduces the text of “Der Preuſche Littauer” and gives the exact reference only 17 times out of31. 8 times his references are incorrect: both in terms of the content and the page numbers. 6 referencescontain accurate content cited from “Der Preuſche Littauer” but give erroneous page and section numbers. Daukantas was the first of 19th century Lithuanian writers who had his unique writing style and historical perspective. This original prism determined the use of indirect citations of “Der Preuſche Littauer”. I determined that because no firsthand Lithuanian historical sources existed Daukantas was forced to use foreign sources such as PL which marginalized Lithuanians as members of an ethnic minority and strange satyre-worthy objects thus requiring for him to engage in historical revisionism by factual reconstruction and reinterpretation from a Lithuanian perspective. He used these secondhand sources to deobjectify Lithuanians and make them into subjects and agents of their own history and destiny by describing their past and character through their eyes. This historical revisionism determined the way Daukantas cited and referenced T. Lepner’s text as a source. Daukantas avoided marking citations in quotation marks since they would then have to be translated as close to the original as possible which would have impeded with his historical vision. To make his narration and perspective congruous with his values and style he edited not only the language of the citations from “Der Preuſche Littauer” but also their content. Most of the information obtained from “Der Preuſche Littauer” was paraphrased, processed, and rewritten in such a way as to incorporate the new text into Daukantas’s own style and ideas. However, it may also be that Daukantas sometimes misquoted the text because he did not understand how the item described in German could look and how he should describe it in Lithuanian. Daukantas often sacrificed the fidelity to the text of “Der Preuſche Littauer” in favour of emotional and expressive speech.
 Translated from the Lithuanian by Ieva Poškutė, BA (Hons) in Film and Literature at University of Warwick.

Drawing Out the Essentials: Historiographic Annotation as a Textual Network

Abstract During the Liu-Song 劉宋 dynasty (420–79), Pei Songzhi 裴松之 (372–451) compiled an elaborate set of annotations to the history of the Three Kingdoms era, Sanguozhi 三國志. Several decades later, during the Liang 梁 dynasty (502–57), Liu Xiaobiao 劉孝標 (462–521) compiled similar annotations for Shishuo xinyu 世說新語, a collection of pithy anecdotes concerning prominent figures from the Han through Jin dynasties. These annotations were products of a new era of textual production, in which fervent interest in historiography and book collecting reached new heights. Though building on earlier traditions of commentary and exegesis, the influence of this newly expanded network of textual circulation can be seen in the sheer variety of sources Pei and Liu cite, as well as in their meticulous and unprecedented attention to bibliographic detail. This has made it possible to use their annotations to trace the compilers and titles of hundreds of texts that would otherwise be completely unknown. Relying on this wealth of information, earlier studies have tabulated the titles of all cited sources to create lengthy bibliographies. But in doing so, they divorce this bibliographic information from the context in which it was originally embedded. This study uses data mined from these annotations to create a series of network diagrams, which illustrate how citations of older texts create connections among the various chapters of the two texts to which they were appended. By considering the networks of textual relationships created through annotation, this study reveals the importance of otherwise marginalized texts in the construction of historiographic knowledge and sheds new light on how scholars of the early medieval period made use of, and made sense of, the increasingly vast sea of text to which they had access.

On the Very Possibility of Historiography

The familiar challenges to historiographical knowledge turn on epistemological concerns having to do with the unobservability of historical events, or with the problem of establishing a sufficiently strong inferential connection between evidence and the historiographical claim one wishes to convert from a true belief into knowledge. This paper argues that these challenges miss a deeper problem, viz., the lack of obvious truth-makers for historiographical claims. The metaphysical challenge to historiography is that reality does not appear to co-operate in our cognitive endeavours by providing truth-makers for claims about historical entities and events. Setting out this less familiar, but more fundamental, challenge to the very possibility of historiography is the first aim of this paper. The various ways in which this challenge might be met are then set out, including ontologically inflationary appeals to abstract objects of various kinds, or to “block” theories of time. The paper closes with the articulation of an ontologically parsimonious solution to the metaphysical challenge to historiography. The cost of this approach is a revision to standard theories of truth. The central claim here is that the standard theories of truth have mistaken distinct causes of truth for truth itself. This mistake leads to distorted expectations regarding truth-makers for historiographical claims. The truth-makers of historiographical claims are not so much the historical events themselves (for they do not exist) but atemporal modal facts about the order of things of which those events were a part.

HISTORIA HISTORIOGRAFII: KSIĄŻKA TELEFONICZNA, CZY FRAGMENT SOCJOLOGII WIEDZY?

In this article the author argues for the rapprochement between the methods and questions of the history of historiography and the questionnaire of the sociology of knowledge. The sociological perspective can inspire both the research on the communities of professional historians and the functioning of the historiographical knowledge in social and political structures. The author analyzes diff erent dimensions of the political functions of historiography and emphasizes the diff erence between the utilitarian and scientific aspects of historical knowledge.

Elizabethan Absolutism and Tamburlaine’s Tents: Sir Humphrey Gilbert Reads De Republica Anglorum

Abstract In 1571 Sir Humphrey Gilbert made a speech in the House of Commons that incited denunciation by his fellow MPs. He warned that Elizabeth could, if she so desired, suppress parliament and never summon it again. When this intervention is considered alongside Gilbert’s statements and alleged actions while on campaign in Ireland in the late 1560s, as well as his known activities in England in the early 1570s, it becomes clear that the speech was but one expression of a coherent absolutist political theology. This seems anomalous given our received historiographical knowledge about the range of ideas available in early Elizabethan England. This impression becomes more pointed once we realise Gilbert was taking an explicit stance against the ‘mixed monarchical’ vision of the Elizabethan Constitution proffered by his acquaintance and intellectual interlocutor Sir Thomas Smith in De Republica Anglorum. Clearly Gilbert believed that both England and Ireland were ruled under the dispensation of something akin to what Fortescue termed dominium tantum regale and Bodin would later call monarchie seigneuriale. Gilbert fused this absolutist regalian vision with Machiavellian ethics, implying consistently that a monarch’s actions, by definition, could not defy natural and divine laws: a remarkably proleptic approach to monarchical power both in English and French terms. His anticipation of developments in political thinking and thought as well as his explicit antagonism towards opinions often deemed ‘Monarchical Republican’ in provenance gives rise to questions, both historical and historiographical, about our account of Elizabethan political thinking.

“I Have To Confess I Cannot Read History So,”

This study aims at a better understanding of Peirce’s conception of a philosophy of history. Peirce has a well defined place for historiography in his classification of the sciences, but what he has to say about history as a philosopher is not primarily referring to it as a form of historiographic knowledge, but to history as a process and a medium. As a process, history is, fundamentally, a cooperative activity of man resulting in civilization and capable of varying categoriological degrees of directionality that reflect the ‘agents’ knowledge’ of history incorporated in the communicative practices of their community. As a medium, history – in the light of the cosmogonic narrative of Peirce’s evolutionary metaphysics and of his mature conception of the summum bonum – is one of two forms of expression of the Absolute. Our paper studies the development of these conceptions from the Schellingian influences on “The Place of Our Age in the History of Civilization” (1863), to “Fixation of Belief” (1877) and “Evolutionary Love” (1892). Throughout this development, Peirce remains primordially interested in the philosophy of history as a mode of normatively conceiving of history (as a medium) in a way that enables us to pragmatically project our cultural development as a process in which an increasing control over our own history is actualized.

Historia mundial de la comunicación

José María Perceval's latest book condenses his vast historiographical knowledge of human mediation. Altogether, the text stands out for the deployment of a large explanatory capacity, while providing an important flow of data ordered chronologically. The events described cover the "long history" of media development, beginning with the process of hominization and the capacity for mutual cooperation of the first communities to reach the globality of the Internet. (Complete article in spanish language).

Prudent Deferment: Cosmographer-Chronicler Juan López de Velasco and the Historiography of the Indies

The article examines why the first Chief Cosmographer-Chronicler of the Indies, Juan López de Velasco (c. 1530–1598), did not fulfill his historiographic duty of writing a general history of the Indies. It argues that although Velasco's tenure (1571-1591) at the Council of the Indies saw a high point in the accumulation of historiographic knowledge and information about Castile's Spanish-American possessions, the structural peculiarities of the cosmographer-chronicler's office disposed Velasco to prudently eschew writing an official history of the Indies. To appreciate and understand those peculiarities, the article focuses on three interrelated factors: the patronage networks at the royal court and their relation to monarchical bureaucracy; the Council of the Indies administrative reforms that led to the creation of the chief cosmographer-chronicler's office; and the climate of secrecy and censorship regarding knowledge of the Indies during Philip II's reign. The overarching emphasis, however, entails a consideration of the relationship between knowledge about Castile's American territories and monarchical bureaucracy, from the perspective of the Habsburg royal court in Madrid.

Historia mundial de la comunicación

Jose Maria Perceval's latest book condenses his vast historiographical knowledge of human mediation. Altogether, the text stands out for the deployment of a large explanatory capacity, while providing an important flow of data ordered chronologically. The events described cover the long history of media development, beginning with the process of hominization and the capacity for mutual cooperation of the first communities to reach the globality of the Internet. (Complete article in spanish language).