Objects in Conflict: The Material Culture of Intercultural Diplomacy, 1600-1830 (Routledge Research in Early Modern History)

This book presents case studies that analyse the diplomatic uses and functions of robes, furniture, weapons, tools, jewelry, paintings, sculptures, books, food, and other material objects in early modern inter-cultural diplomatic encounters in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific world. Readers will gain insights into the material dimensions of early modern diplomacy and the cultural logics and diplomatic rationales of object use in a wide range of regional, political, and imperial contexts spanning the Habsburg Empire, France, Spain, the Ottoman Empire, British and French colonial North America, colonial Mexico, Hawaii, and the South Seas.Transcending the established topic of gift exchanges, the volume aims at an analysis of the overall material settings of early modern diplomatic encounters.With its clear temporal focus on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the source-driven case studies on concrete objects and object groups open multiple paths into the complexities of