America and the Atlantic in the first globalisation

Continuing with the development of the Cycle of Conferences 'Málaga, Spain and Latin America, today', organised by the Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Málaga to publicise the Casa América project in Málaga, Esther Cruces Blanco, director of the General Archive of the Indies, will give the conference 'Institutions, historical heritage and shared knowledge on both sides of the Atlantic', this Monday 13th December, at 19:00 hours, in the Assembly Hall of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Málaga. 

The speaker will analyse the scope of the geographical discoveries that changed the basis of knowledge and the imaginary sustained since Antiquity about what lay beyond Finisterre and the Pillars of Hercules. 

From 1492 the crossing of the Atlantic and from 1513 the discoveries of the South Sea gave impetus to the circumnavigation of the planet and the construction of the modern world, as documents attest. Globalisation is a phenomenon that began in the 16th century with the new Atlantic and Pacific sea routes transporting merchandise, goods, people, ideas, as well as knowledge, cultural and artistic manifestations. The political, economic and social prominence of the Spanish Monarchy required officials and state administrative machinery, but also numerous traders and merchants, adventurers and those who aspired to a better life. 

Today, the cooperation and collaboration of those living on both sides of the Atlantic requires a greater understanding of what happened in the past and a better understanding of the present. Hence, the need to know and analyse these human manifestations by sharing the essential sources of information for research and scientific reconstruction of knowledge. 

Esther Cruces Blanco holds a degree and doctorate in History from the University of Malaga, is a civil servant in the State Corps of Archivists and Librarians and is currently the director of the General Archive of the Indies in Seville. Previously, she was the director of the Provincial Historical Archive of Cordoba, the Archive of the Provincial Delegation of the Ministry of Finance in Cordoba, the General Archive of Andalusia and the Provincial Historical Archive of Malaga. She has also combined her work as an archivist with teaching at the University of Malaga and at the Andalusian Institute of Public Administration as a collaborating lecturer. As a researcher, she has written several books and numerous articles on the history of Malaga, archives and archival science, and has given a large number of conferences. She is a numerary member of several Academies: the Academy of History of Andalusia, the Malaga Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Noble Letters of Antequera, and is Medal of the Malaga Athenaeum 2021. 

Submitted by José Antonio Sierra, Hispanismo advisor.