Monarchs throughout the ages have commissioned official histories that cast their reigns in a favorable light for future generations. These accounts, sanctioned and supported by the ruling government, often gloss over the more controversial aspects of a king's or queen’s time on the throne. Instead, they present highly selective and positive readings of a monarch’s contribution to national identity and global affairs. In Clio and the Crown, Richard L. Kagan examines the official histories of Spanish monarchs from medieval times to the middle of the 18th century. He expertly guides readers through the different kinds of official histories commissioned: those whose primary focus was the monarch; those that centered on the Spanish kingdom as a whole; and those that celebrated Spain’s conquest of the New World. In doing so, Kagan also documents the life and work of individual court chroniclers, examines changes in the practice of official history, and highlights the political machinations that influenced the redaction of such histories. Just as world leaders today rely on fast-talking press officers to explain their sometimes questionable actions to the public, so too did the kings and queens of medieval and early modern Spain. Monarchs often went to great lengths to exert complete control over the official history of their reign, physically intimidating historians, destroying and seizing manuscripts and books, rewriting past histories, and restricting history writing to authorized persons. Still, the larger practice of history writing—as conducted by nonroyalist historians, various scholars and writers, and even church historians—provided a corrective to official histories. Kagan concludes that despite its blemishes, the writing of official histories contributed, however imperfectly, to the practice of historiography itself.

From ca. 1300 a new genre developed in European literature, Neo-Latin drama. Building on medieval drama, vernacular theatre and classical drama, it spread around Europe. It was often used as a means to educate young boys in Latin, in acting and in moral issues. Comedies, tragedies and mixed forms were written. The Societas Jesu employed Latin drama in their education and public relations on a large scale. They had borrowed the concept of this drama from the humanist and Protestant gymnasia, and perfected it to a multi media show. However, the genre does not receive the attention that it deserves. In this volume, a historical overview of this genre is given, as well as analyses of separate plays. Contributors include: Jan Bloemendal, Jean-Frédéric Chevalier, Cora Dietl, Mathieu Ferrand, Howard Norland, Joaquín Pascual Barea, Fidel Rädle, and Raija Sarasti Willenius.

From Al-Andalus to the Americas (13th-17th Centuries). Destruction and Construcion of Societies offers a multi-perspective view of the filiation of different colonial and settler colonial experiences, from the Medieval Iberian Peninsula to the early Modern Americas. All the articles in the volume refer the reader to colonial orders that extended over time, that substantially reduced indigenous populations, that imposed new productive strategies and created new social hierarchies. The ideological background and how conquests were organised; the treatment given to the conquered lands and people; the political organisations, and the old and new agricultural systems are issues discussed in this volume. Contributors are David Abulafia, Manuel Ardit, Antonio Espino, Adela Fábregas, Josep M. Fradera, Enric Guinot, Helena Kirchner, Antonio Malpica, Virgilio Martínez-Enamorado, Carmen Mena, António Mendes, Félix Retamero, Inge Schjellerup, Josep Torró, and Antoni Virgili.

The thirteen articles in this volume deal with the Neo-Latin emblem book after the birth of the genre with Andrea Alciato's Emblematum libellus (1531). While the interest in emblematics has grown considerably during the last decades, the seminal Neo-Latin production has received relatively little attention. In Mundus Emblematicus an international team of experts in the field makes this part of the emblem tradition accessible to a broad scholarly audience. The articles cover a variety of emblem books published at the time, ranging from influential humanist collections (for instance those by Achille Bocchi, Hadrianus Junius, or Joachim Camerarius) to alchemist (Michael Maier) or religious emblems (such as the books of the Calvinist Theodere de Beze, or the Jesuit Herman Hugo). In each paper subjects dealt with include the historical context of the work and its makers, the relation between word and image, the structure of the collection as a whole, and the emblematic game (intertextuality in word and image). Moreover, several articles explore the interaction between the emblem and connected literary phenomena, like the commonplace-book, the fable or the use of commentaries. All papers are in English and all examples from Latin texts are translated. Together, these articles show the variety within the Neo-Latin emblem production, thus challenging traditional approaches of the emblem. As such Mundus Emblematicus contributes towards a more comprehensive view of the forms and functions of the genre as a whole.