Professor Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra is the Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. A native of Ecuador, he grew up in Mexico and Colombia, and received his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

He has previously taught at Illinois State University and SUNY-Buffalo. He has also been a visiting professor at several universities outside the United States, in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and England.

He has won numerous national fellowships given by the Social Science Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities (at the John Carter Brown Library), the Andrew Mellon (at the Huntington Library), the Charles Warren Center for Studies of American History (at Harvard), the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, among others.

He is the author of more than 60 journal articles and book chapters, and is the author and editor of several books, including How to Write the History of the New World, which was cited among the best books of the year (2001) by The Economist; Puritan Conquistadors; Nature, Empire, and Nation; The Atlantic in Global History, 1500-2000 (co-edited, with Erik Seeman), and The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade (co-edited with Jim Sidbury and Matt Childs).

He is currently finishing a collection of essays tentatively entitled On Prophets and Hybrid Empires, and his ongoing book project is entitled Bible and Empire: The Old Testament in the Spanish Monarchy, from Columbus to the Wars of Independence.

In episode seven of History Hub’s podcast series – ‘Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra: conversations on the history of Portugal and Spain, 1415-1898‘ – Professor Cañizares-Esguerra is in conversation with series host Dr Edward Collins. In the episode, which is available to podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud, they discuss Old Testament culture of the Spanish Monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the impact of a distinct Converso – or Jewish convert – culture that suffused all aspects of the Spanish Empire.

This impact included the nature of heresies and prophecies, the constitution of the Jesuits, political philosophy, and the way Amerindian and creole intellectuals got to think about their own indigenous and continental pasts. This manifested itself through typological readings of the Old Testament to celebrate the global Spanish monarchy as a new Israel from the sixteenth century.

‘Old Testament Culture in the Spanish Monarchy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries’ with Professor Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra (UT Austin).

This History Hub podcast series features interviews with experts in the areas of Portuguese and Spanish history, from the beginning of the Portuguese discoveries in 1415 to the end of Spanish dominion in America in 1898. The interviews, conducted by historian Dr. Edward Collins, cover a range of topics on the domestic and overseas histories of both nations, which include, among others: the Portuguese explorations of Africa and Asia, Spanish navigation and settlement in America, the church in Portugal and Spain, monarchy and intermarriage in the Iberian kingdoms, natural science and mapping in America, the role of nautical science, Irish historical relations with Portugal and Spain, and imperial competition in Europe and overseas. The interviewees comprise a number of established and renowned academics, as well as up-and-coming researchers from universities and institutions worldwide.

This History Hub series is funded by UCD Seed Funding and supported by UCD School of History. Series editor is Mike Liffey (Real Smart Media). Download series episodes on iTunes or listen via Soundcloud. historyhub.ie/kingdom-empire-and-plus-ultra

Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra Episodes

• Series introduction by Edward Collins
• Episode 1: Portugal and Spain in the 15th and early-16th centuries: a brief overview by Edward Collins
• Episode 2: Ellen Dooley on the Spanish Inquisition and the religious image in Spain & America, 1478–1700
• Episode 3: Ricardo Padrón on America, the Pacific, and Asia in the Imperial Imagination, 1513-1609
• Episode 4: Allison Bigelow on the Science of Colonial Silver: Rethinking the History of Mining and Metallurgy in the Early Americas
• Episode 5: Early Colonial Brazil, English Piracy, and the Adventures of Anthony Knivet (1591-1599) by Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá
• Episode 6: Onésimo T. Almeida on Portugal and the Dawn of Modernity, 1419-1620
• Episode 7: Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra on Old Testament Culture in the Spanish Monarchy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries

Image: detail from cover page of Gazophylatium Regium Perubicum by Gaspar de Escalona Agüero, 1647. [Public domain].