The first imperial age: European overseas expansion c. 1400-1715 (review)

168 Reviews articles followed, including an article by Vincenzo Ferrone and Massimo Firpo in the Rivista storica italiano, 97 (1985), 177-238, a shortened version of the same article in the Journal of Modern History 58 (1986), 485-524, and a perceptive article by Richard S. WestfaU in History of Science, 26 (1988), 399415 . These and other reviewers attack Redondi firstly for his methodology, for confusing proofs with possibilities, for distorting texts, for refusing to take documents at their face value but using them instead as a source of 'hidden meanings, sidelong glances, and daring elucubrations' (Ferrone and Firpo, p. 513), and then justifying his approach by citing Carlo Ginzburg's 'circumstantial paradigm'. They attack him secondly for getting important details wrong. Not only is he wrong in attributing the document to Grassi, but also he is wrong in claiming that it was an official denunciation. They attack him thirdly for not having any evidence to support some of his crucial arguments; such as, his assertion that Galileo had two trials: a secret trial dealing with the eucharist and a mock trial dealing with Copernicanism. They attack him finaUy for presenting distorted pictures of Galileo, the Accademia dei Lincei, Pope Urban VIII, and the Jesuits. Regarding the latter, as the author of a book on The Jesuit mind I know Redondi's Jesuits weU. They are the Jesuits of the hackneyed stereotypes that modern scholarship seeks to dispel, cunning in advancing their cause, monolithic in their relations with others, unforgiving of any opposition, bound to the interests of Spain, military in their organization, and obscurantist in their opposition to innovation. One final point: if the Holy Office condemned Galileo for the atomist views of// Saggiatore and not for the Copernican views of the Dialogue, why did it place the Dialogue on the Index of Forbidden Books and not / / Saggiatorel Despite the criticism we now have an English edition. What next? Probably, according to one reviewer, a movie. A. Lynn Martin Department of History The University of Adelaide Scammell, G. V., The first imperial age: European overseas expansion c. 1400-1715, London, Unwin Hyam, 1989; paperback; pp. xx, 281; 6 maps; R. R. P. AUS$34.95. After a life devoted to scholarly study of the history of the sea and seafaring, Dr Scammell has been given the opportunity to present a semi-popular overview of the empire which the sea sustained between 1400 and 1715, only partially fettered by a scholarly requirement for footnotes. Such a challenge, however, may well be impossible to meet. The complexity of the interactions and linkages makes a simplified model too unreaUstic while space constrains a more Reviews 169 nuanced presentation and the structuring of the narrative makes simplifying choices inevitable. The result is a text which provides a useful summary of recent revisionist work on the subject, which sustains interest during the reading process, but which leaves many critical questions unanswered. Scammell thus provides a coherent summary of the complex Spanish government structure but does not really integrate this into his discussion of colonial society, which is handled with such brevity that, combined with his gloomy chapter on exploitation, it inevitably creates a picture of universal decUne and fall. Publisher pressure perhaps promoted the title; although, 'empire' is so widespread a phenomenon that a claim for priority may be hard to sustain. Underdevelopment theorists would doubtless also challenge the preliminary claim that the last remnants of Europe's overseas empires have now all but gone. However, to Dr Scammell's traditional Eurocentric viewpoint, the handing over of the formal instruments of government makes the assertion setf evident Dr Scammell offers a re-evaluation of European expansion from the specific standpoint of the late 1980s and has no hesitation in discarding explanations which he believes recent experience has shown to be fallible, though he has more difficulty in offering satisfactory alternatives. His own explanatory preferences are clear from his bibUographical selection. In the tradition of those committed to dismantling heroic myths, he takes care to include all evidence of weakness, venality and disorganisation. Only because other societies had indigenous problems even greater than Europe's, was Europe 'less at a disadvantage than mightfirstappear'. H e...