Between Encyclopedia and Chorography

Defining the Agency of "Cultural Encyclopedias" from a Transcultural Perspective

Anna Boroffka

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9783110748130
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia moderna temprana

During the early modern period, regional specified compendia – which combine information on local moral and natural history, towns and fortifications with historiography, antiquarianism, images series or maps – gain a new agency in the production of knowledge. Via literary and aesthetic practices, the compilations construct a display of regional specified knowledge. In some cases this display of regional knowledge is presented as a display of a local cultural identity and is linked to early modern practices of comparing and classifying civilizations. At the core of the publication are compendia on the Americas which research has described as chorographies, encyclopeadias or – more recently – 'cultural encyclopaedias'. Studies on Asian and European encyclopeadias, universal histories and chorographies help to contextualize the American examples in the broader field of an early modern and transcultural knowledge production, which inherits and modifies the ancient and medieval tradition.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Regionally specified knowledge compendia between encyclopedia and chorography
• I Universal history, encyclopedia, and chorography: Early modern practices and forms of knowledge compilation
• II Creating and organizing New Spanish knowledge: Early colonial compendia and “cultural encyclopedias”
• III Writing history and depicting knowledge: Compendia and “cultural encyclopedias” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries
• Notes on the contributors