{"product_id":"william-robertson-lhistoire-de-lamerique-1778-the-scottish-enlightenment-discovers-america","title":"William Robertson, L'Histoire de l'Amérique, 1778 — The Scottish Enlightenment Discovers America","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eROBERTSON, William.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eL’Histoire de l’Amérique.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eTraduite de l’Anglois. Paris: Chez Panckoucke, Libraire, Hôtel de Thou, rue des Poitevins, 1778. First French edition. Two volumes, quarto. Complete with four folding engraved maps and the folding\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTable Chronologique des Mexicains\u003c\/em\u003e. Contemporary mottled calf, spines with five raised bands, richly gilt in compartments with floral tools, red morocco lettering-pieces and green morocco volume labels, marbled endpapers, edges stained red.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eTHE BOOK\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWilliam Robertson’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eHistory of America\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewas the most ambitious eighteenth-century attempt to write the history of the Spanish conquest as a single, coherent narrative. Earlier accounts had concentrated on particular voyages, conquistadors or colonies. Robertson began instead with the European conditions that made Atlantic expansion possible, followed Columbus across the ocean, and then traced the destruction of the Aztec and Inca empires and the construction of Spanish rule in their place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRobertson was Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Historiographer Royal for Scotland and one of the central historians of the Scottish Enlightenment. His method was comparative and critical. Spanish chroniclers, missionary histories and official accounts were read against one another, their contradictions examined and their claims weighed. He had no access to the Spanish imperial archives and never travelled to America, yet the range of printed and manuscript sources assembled for the work was exceptional. For European readers, the result became the principal general history of the conquest until William H. Prescott’s histories of Mexico and Peru appeared in the nineteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work is also a revealing document of Enlightenment historiography. Robertson admired the administrative discipline of the Spanish monarchy while condemning much of the violence by which its American empire had been acquired. His descriptions of indigenous societies are frequently perceptive, though governed by the period’s hierarchical theories of social development. Mexico and Peru were treated as civilizations with political, religious and historical institutions of their own, yet measured against a European model of historical progress.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst published in English in 1777, the work was translated almost immediately. This French edition appeared the following year under the imprint of Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, one of the most important publishers of the late French Enlightenment and later the organiser of the vast\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eEncyclopédie Méthodique\u003c\/em\u003e. Its publication placed Robertson’s account directly within French debates over commerce, empire, conquest and the comparative history of civilizations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe illustrative material consists of four large folding maps and the folding\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTable Chronologique des Mexicains\u003c\/em\u003e. The latter reproduces Mexican pictorial forms of historical record: rulers, calendrical signs, temples, tribute, conquest and dynastic succession are conveyed through figures and glyphs rather than alphabetic text. Robertson included it as evidence for the preservation of historical memory in pre-Hispanic Mexico. It forms one part of a wider scholarly apparatus rather than an ornamental supplement, accompanying a history that sought to reconcile European documentary method with the surviving records of the societies it described.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eCONDITION\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA sound and attractive contemporary set. The bindings rubbed and worn, with abrasions and areas of surface loss to the boards, wear at the corners and spine ends, and minor losses to the leather. The gilt decoration remains legible and the lettering-pieces are substantially intact. Marbled endpapers and red edges preserved. Internally with scattered foxing, toning and occasional staining, including dampstaining to the preliminary leaves of the second volume. The second title-page more noticeably stained. The four folding maps and folding chronological table are all present. The bindings remain firm.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47242321658044,"sku":null,"price":900.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0736\/1285\/3436\/files\/1300167.jpg?v=1785974132","url":"https:\/\/atelierzweig.com\/products\/william-robertson-lhistoire-de-lamerique-1778-the-scottish-enlightenment-discovers-america","provider":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}