Imagining the Americas in Print: Books, Maps and Encounters in the Atlantic World (Library of the Written Word - The Handpress World, 74)

Book info: Imagining the Americas in Print: Books, Maps and Encounters in the Atlantic World (Library of the Written Word - The Handpress World, 74) (Leather Bound, 284 pages) – Brill, 2019. Language: English.

In Imagining the Americas in Print, Michiel van Groesen reveals the variety of ways in which publishers and printers in early modern Europe gathered information about the Americas, constructed a narrative, and used it to further colonial ambitions in the Atlantic world (1500–1700). The essays examine the creative ways in which knowledge was manufactured in printing workshops. Collectively they bring to life the vivid print culture that determined the relationship between the Old World and the New in the Age of Encounters, and chart the genres that reflected and shaped the European imagination, and helped to legitimate ideologies of colonialism in the next two centuries. Editorial Reviews Review “Michiel van Groesen’s work makes an impact as substantial as that of the publishers and engravers he studies. Undoubtedly it will also be as enduring in its influence.”
Sabrina Alcorn Baron, University of Maryland. In: Journal of British Studies, Vol. 60, No. 3 (July 2021), pp. 730–732.

“The variety of print and manuscript artifacts that Groesen examines, along with the depth and attention to detail he pays to his objects of study, make this book a worthy read for Atlantic and book historians alike.”
Rachel Stein, Tulane University. In: Journal of Early Modern History, Vol. 24. No. 4–5, (September 2020), pp. 445–447.

“Van Groesen’s book represents a valuable contribution to transatlantic history, the history of the book, as well as the history of visual culture.”
Mirela Altić, Institute of Social Sciences, Zagreb. In: , Vol. 7, No. 4 (2020), pp. 678–681.

About the Author Michiel van Groesen is Professor of Maritime History at Leiden University. He is the author of Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages (2008) and Amsterdam’s Atlantic: Print Culture and the Making of Dutch Brazil (2017).