Towards Atlantic Contemporaneity: Spain

Cambridge University Press eBooks, pp. 204–237

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Spain, and investigates the culmination of the genre of the printed newspaper in the final years of the seventeenth century by focusing on the so-called Darien Scheme, the attempt by Scottish merchants to create a settlement colony on the Isthmus of Panama in 1699–1700. The Darien Scheme brings the book full circle to the same spot in the Caribbean where newspaper interest had peaked during Drake’s final campaign a century before. Transnational coverage of the Darien Scheme, and its collapse, provides an excellent opportunity to compare the different media landscapes – from strongly engaged (Scotland, England, and Spain) to neutral or indifferent (Dutch Republic, Germany, France, and Italy) – at a time when the European press began to lose its monopoly on periodical news in the Atlantic world.

Authors 1

1. Michiel van Groesen corresponding Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden