Early modern travelers often did not form part of classic âdiasporaâ communities: they frequently never really settled, perhaps remaining abroad for some time in one place, then traveling further; not âblown by the wind,â but by changing and complex conditions that often turned out to make them unwelcome anywhere. The dispersed developed strategies of survival by keeping their distance from old and new temporary âhomes,â as well as by using information from and manipulating foreign representations of their former countries.
This volume assembles case studies from the Mediterranean context, the Americas and Japan. They explore what kind of âpower(s)â and agency dispersed people had, counterintuitively, through the connections they maintained with their former homes, and through those they established abroad.
Cornel Zwierlein teaches early modern history and conducts research on a Heisenberg Fellowship at the Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich-Meinecke Institut. His latest monographs are: The Political Thought of the French League and Rome, 1585â1589 (Droz, 2016); Imperial Unknowns: The French and the British in the Mediterranean, 1650â1750 (Cambridge University Press, 2016); Politische Theorie und Herrschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020), and Prometheus Tamed (Brill, 2021).
"This book provokes a strong reflection on the work of historians. It reminds us that we tend to see stories from one point of view, and that we choose some kind of sources and not others. In this way The Power opens, or reopens, a line of investigation where the topic is not only the people of the past but also the work of historians and their way of looking at the past." - Enrica Guerra, University of Ferrara, in: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter 2023), pp. 1515â1516
Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Note on the Editor Notes on the Contributors Introduction
âCornel Zwierlein
Part 1: Dispersed in Ecclesiastical and Diplomatic Networks
1 In Parte dâInfedeli: A Papal Informant in Istanbul (1607â1608)
âEdoardo Angione
2 The Album Amicorum of the Athonite Monk Theoklitos Polyeidis and the Agency of Perambulating Greek Alms Collectors in the Holy Roman Empire (18th Century)
âStefano Saracino
3 The Great Imposture: Eastern Christian Rogues and Counterfeiters in Rome, c. 17thâ19th Centuries
âCesare Santus
Part 2: Dispersed in the Republic of Letters
4 Nomads in the Early Modern Republic of Letters: The Transient Correspondents of Henry Oldenburg and the Early Royal Society of London
âIordan Avramov
6 Johann Heinrich Callenbergâs Orient
âSimon Mills
7 Solomon Negri: The Self-Fashioning of an Arab Christian in Early Modern Europe
âPaula Manstetten
Part 3: Dispersed by War
8 From Erstwhile Captive to Cultural Erudite: The Career of Korean-Born Samurai, Wakita Kyūbei
âDavid Nelson
9 Stories of Spanish Captivity in Istanbul: From Trauma to Empowerment
âAna M. RodrÃguez-RodrÃguez
10 Between America and the Maghrib: The Marquis of Varinas and the Weapons of the Exile
âAdolfo Polo y La Borda
Part 4: Dispersed in Commercial and Political Networks
11 In the Blind Spot of the State: Trieste in the 18th-Century Trans-Imperial Adriatic Society
âDavid Do Paço
12 Religious Feeling and the Construction of a Merchantâs Identity in the Greek Trade Networks of the Late Eighteenth Century
âMaria-Tsampika Lampitsi
13 From Bern with Love: The Spy with a Taste for the Exquisite in Early Modern Istanbul
âMarloes Cornelissen
14 Dispersed Things: European Merchant Households in the Levant
âCornel Zwierlein
Index Rerum Index Locorum Index Nominum
Early modernists who are interested in the dispersed and their remaining powers and capacities abroad; historians interested in the religious, political and economic networks from London and Germany to Rome, Constantinople, the Spanish Americas and Japan. Keywords: global history, Mediterranean history, microhistory, diplomatic history, papacy, Republic of Letters, Christian-Muslim relationships, brokers, merchant companies, Greek Orthodoxy and the West, history of things and inventories, captivity studies, soldiers, samurai.