Books: "Noble" Weapons for Spain’s "Reconquest" of the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds

By the 1920s, Spain was eager to recover its former colonies. Amidst economic crises at home, the competition with other European powers, and the ascendance of the United States as a new global empire, people in Spain hoped that just like “swords and crosses” had done in the past, “pen and paper” would allow them to “conquer” the Americas, and the Philippines, once again. Unlike the former “weapons,” the new tools for expansion would not “wound” but “dignify,” people in Spain cared to clarify. Books were the most important, the most “noble weapon.” The cultural and spiritual connection prompted by books, Spanish editors and publishers argued, would organically spur trade, push Spain’s commercial success, promote reconciliation, and ensure Spanish tutelage over territories in the Atlantic and Pacific worlds.

To learn about the markets they wanted to “dominate,” state-makers sent a “Questionnaire about the Spanish Book” to the former colonies in 1922. Echoing the spirit of the Relaciones geográficas of the late sixteenth century, the questions were supposed to provide a comprehensive idea of how commerce in books unfolded, consumers’ preferences, and the place of Spanish books vis-à-vis the ones printed elsewhere. In this presentation I examine why Spanish publishers and editors posited books as a tool of conquest, how they grappled with books’ multiple powers, and how booksellers in the Americas reacted to a project they saw as encroaching, yet profitable. While state-makers, and publishers praised books’ potentials, they struggled to materialize their plans of expansion. As I show by focusing on Colombia, transforming material realities proved challenging. Publishers were unable to produce cheaper books, ship them timely, and design packages so that they would not arrive damaged after crossing the Atlantic Ocean and the Andes mountains. Books might have been alluring, but they were ultimately not magical commodities.