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Information empire: communication infrastructure and the state in Bourbon Peru, 1718-1821

Cohoon, William Patrick
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2020
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After the War of Spanish Succession (1701¿1713), the Bourbons ascended to the Spanish throne. From 1713 until 1826 these monarchs instituted a series of mandates directed toward centralizing the government¿s power throughout Spain¿s empire. Previous scholars of the Bourbon reforms tend to emphasize crown-initiated legislation that expelled the Jesuits, increased taxes, and strengthened the military, and how these measures contributed to the independence movements in Latin America during the early-nineteenth century. In contrast, my dissertation, ¿Information Empire: Communication Infrastructure and the State in Bourbon Peru, 1718¿1821,¿ demonstrates how these reformers applied Enlightenment theories of scientific management to re-engineer political society through the enhancement of communication infrastructure and development of new surveillance system techniques. In my dissertation, I define communication infrastructure as the physical conduits, like roads and the royal mail system, that circulate information. Surveillance systems were created by developing new methods to collect data, such as assigning addresses to accurately locate and document the movement of citizens and expose vagrants and delinquents. I contend that the Bourbon monarchy emphasized expediting the circulation of information gathered on Peruvians to make better informed decisions on how to quell potential internal and external threats to their rule. My findings show that the crown¿s goal to expand its ability to transmit and gather information played an integral part in consolidating social control in the Viceroyalty of Peru. These alterations, however, also demonstrate the unevenness and often contradictory policies that contributed to Peru¿s movement for independence in the 1820s
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History
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