The School of Salamanca in the Affairs of the Indies

Barbarism and Political Order

Natsuko Matsumori

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429807411
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia del mundo

The School of Salamanca in the Affairs of the Indies explores the significance of Salamancans, such as Vitoria and Soto, and related thinkers, such as Las Casas and Sepúlveda, in the formation of the early modern political order. It also analyses early modern understandings of political order, with a focus both on the decline of the medieval universal world through the independence and secularization of political community and the establishment of continuous and imbalanced relations between various European and non-European political communities.

Through its investigation, this book highlights how Salamancans and related thinkers clearly distinguished their understandings of political order from medieval thought, and did so in a different way to contemporary and later thinkers, such as Machiavelli, Luther, Bodin, and Grotius, particularly with regards to the Indies, "barbarian" worlds. It also reveals the strong contribution of the School of Salamanca in early modern political thought, both internally and externally. Salamancans imposed moral restrictions against "interior barbarism, " that is, power beyond law, and included "exterior barbarism, " that is, "barbarian" societies, in the common political order.

Situating the School of Salamanca in the mainstream history of European political thought, The School of Salamanca in the Affairs of the Indies is ideal for academics and postgraduate students of intellectual history and of Spanish colonial expansion.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• A note on the text
• 1 Early modern understandings of political order and the School of Salamanca
• 2 Reason and prudence: The nature of the Indians
• 3 Power, commonwealth, and the law of nations: The legitimacy of the Spanish dominion over the Indies
• 4 Conditions of just war: The conquest of the Indies
• 5 Significance and problems of the Salamancan understandings of political order
• Appendix 1 Salamancans and related thinkers
• Appendix 2 Life and publication history of key figures
• Index