Abstract

FERNANDEZ ARMESTO, María Verónica. Readers and economic readings in Buenos Aires at the end of the colonial period. Inf. cult. soc. [online]. 2005, n.13, pp.29-56. ISSN 1514-8327.

The article attempts a first look to the world of the economic readings in Buenos Aires in the last years of the colonial period: which authors circulated more frequently, which books used to be found in the private libraries, and what type of people were interested in them, starting from the inventories of private libraries, and indirectly, from the registration of books donations to Public Library in the first independent years. The postulated hypothesis is that the economics books enjoyed of more freedom in the Buenos Aires late colonial period, propitiating the diffusion of the new ideas of the so-called "Christian Enlightenment». It was in this context, characterized by the active presence of the clergy and the officials of the viceregal administration, (i.e., the members of the two Powers: the Crown and the Church), and an increasingly influential mercantile sector, which constituted the readers of economic works. On the other hand, the analysis of the libraries inventories shows how frequently the Spanish and Italian authors appeared, through translations, adaptations or copies like other European economists' middlemen.

Keywords : History of books; Economic readings; Buenos Aires; Enlightenment; Colonial period.

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