The Iberian vision: Science and empire in the framework of a Universal Monarchy, 1500-1800

This essay is devoted to the study of science in a long-successful politica l structure, the Universal Monarchy. Because the Iberian Empires did not su rvive into modernity, they have been viewed as incompatible with modern sci ence. This, however, is a matter of perspective. From 1500 to 1800, science was one of the main instruments of Iberian representation in the New World . While it was not expressed in the familiar language of objectivity and wa s far from experimentalism, a kind of science defined by religious, courtie r, and symbolic meanings shaped the dream of a Universal Monarchy. When thi s political concept became peripheral in the new Western order, Creole cult ures reappropiated its practices to mark the identity of their new nations. However, even before colonial emancipation, these new national identities (American, not European; local, not universal) were based firmly in the nat ural knowledge of the New World regions they represented.