Experiencing Nature: The Spanish American Empire and the Early Scientific Revolution

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 one Searching the Land for Commodities 13 two A Chamber of Knowledge: The Casa de la Contratación and Its Empirical Methods 29 three Communities of Experts: Artisans and Innovation in the New World 56 four Circuits of Information: Reports from the New World 81 five Books of Nature: Scholars, Natural History, and the New World 101 conclusions The Politics of Knowledge 128 appendix 1 Pilots and Cosmographers at the Casa de la Contratación 135 appendix 2 Instruments 140 appendix 3 Spanish Scientific Books 147 Notes 151 Bibliography 189 Index 205 THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...