Manila 1645

Manila, 1645 reconstructs what the city of Manila was like before the earthquakes of the mid-seventeenth century. The book demonstrates the importance of addressing the history of Southeast Asia as a multi-layered framework, rather than a series of entangled histories. In doing so, Manila is contextualized not merely as a Spanish settlement connected to New Spain via America, but instead within Southeast Asia, situated between the Chinese and the Sulú Seas, and located in the centre of commercial routes used by Armenian, Dutch, and Portuguese traders. This historical and geographical context is crucial to understanding later cultural dialogues. Urban planning, housing and architecture, and social networks in the city are also examined. The book will appeal to students and scholars interested in early modern history, global history and architectural history.

Named one of BBC History Magazine's "Books of the Year" in 2010 In this groundbreaking study, D. R. M. Irving reconnects the Philippines to current musicological discourse on the early modern Hispanic world. For some two and a half centuries, the Philippine Islands were firmly interlinked to Latin America and Spain through transoceanic relationships of politics, religion, trade, and culture. The city of Manila, founded in 1571, represented a vital intercultural nexus and a significant conduit for the regional diffusion of Western music. Within its ethnically diverse society, imported and local musics played a crucial role in the establishment of ecclesiastical hierarchies in the Philippines and in propelling the work of Roman Catholic missionaries in neighboring territories. Manila's religious institutions resounded with sumptuous vocal and instrumental performances, while an annual calendar of festivities brought together many musical traditions of the indigenous and immigrant populations in complex forms of artistic interaction and opposition. Multiple styles and genres coexisted according to strict regulations enforced by state and ecclesiastical authorities, and Irving uses the metaphors of European counterpoint and enharmony to critique musical practices within the colonial milieu. He argues that the introduction and institutionalization of counterpoint acted as a powerful agent of colonialism throughout the Philippine Archipelago, and that contrapuntal structures were reflected in the social and cultural reorganization of Filipino communities under Spanish rule. He also contends that the active appropriation of music and dance by the indigenous population constituted a significant contribution to the process of hispanization. Sustained "enharmonic engagement" between Filipinos and Spaniards led to the synthesis of hybrid, syncretic genres and the emergence of performance styles that could contest and subvert hegemony. Throwing new light on a virtually unknown area of music history, this book contributes to current understanding of the globalization of music, and repositions the Philippines at the frontiers of research into early modern intercultural exchange.

On 8 November 1639, Willem Leyel left Denmark as commander of the ship Christianshavn bound for the Danish colony of Tranquebar with its fortress Dansborg, where he was to take charge of all trading operations of the first Danish East India Company. The voyage, however, became a seemingly endless nightmare of difficulties and disasters. When Leyel finally reached Tranquebar almost four years later, he found the fortress in a state of complete disrepair -- with the former governor having run off with everything of value. But despite having only a few men in his service, barely any capital and almost no possibility of communicating with the managers of the Company in Copenhagen, Leyel managed to turn things around -- befriending local princes and establishing a profitable trade with their kingdoms, at times even resorting to piracy in order to preserve Tranquebar on Danish hands. Drawing on Leyel's own letters and papers located in The National Archives in Copenhagen, Asta Bredsdorff ingeniously weaves together the rich narrative strains in order to produce a moving and memorable account of Leyel's exploits in the East Indies. The source material even allows for a reconstruction of several dramatic episodes down to the last detail. This book offers a fascinating account of personal fortitude, courage and determination as well as a unique and fantastic glimpse of the conditions in Tranquebar at the time, of life at sea during the dangerous voyages and of Danish history in general.

In an innovative mix of history, anthropology, and post-colonial theory, Vicente L. Rafael examines the role of language in the religious conversion of the Tagalogs to Catholicism and their subsequent colonization during the early period (1580-1705) of Spanish rule in the Philippines. By tracing this history of communication between Spaniards and Tagalogs, Rafael maps the conditions that made possible both the emergence of a colonial regime and resistance to it. Originally published in 1988, this new paperback edition contains an updated preface that places the book in theoretical relation to other recent works in cultural studies and comparative colonialism.

By bringing together contributions from several disciplines, this book promotes a comparative perspective and a collaborative approach to disasters in Southeast Asia. Hazards affect all aspects of human life, having impacts on the environmental, social, economic, political and biological systems. In order to better understand the effects produced by these disastrous events – including the mechanisms of resilience – it is necessary to understand in depth the issues involved. They are embedded in multiple dimensions – affective, psychosocial, cultural, architectural... Disasters pose the challenge of questioning the consequences and determining factors that contribute to their occurrence, but also to their experience. Through the multiple perspectives it offers, this book aims to lead to a better problematisation of the notions of risk, resilience and adaptation. Olivier Servais (PhD, 2003) is a historian and anthropologist. He is full professor at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He teaches the anthropology of symbolic systems and their relationship to the so-called «natural» or «artificial» environment. He has conducted fieldwork and documentary research in Canada, the Philippines, Mauritius, France, Belgium and in digital worlds. In his current research, he studies the imaginaries of virtual worlds, online et off line sociability, including rituals, resistance and resilience through or to digital, and the organization of groups at the margins, including indigenous people. Lionel Simon (PhD, 2017) is an anthropologist. He is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Louvain in Belgium. His work focuses on ontologies, local knowledge and human-environment relations. He has been conducting research with the Wayuu of Colombia (Guajira Peninsula, since 2006) and the Mentawai of Indonesia (Siberut Island, since 2017).

The Deshima Diaries provide invaluable daily information on social and economic life in Tokugawa Japan in the early years of the Sakoku period.

Provides new and important perspectives on the complex character of colonial history