El imperio de la virtud. Grandeza mexicana (1604) de Bernanrdo de Balbuena y el discurso criollo novohispano

Resumen del libro

Against the normative proto-Mexican and criollista reading of Grandeza mexicana (1604), El imperio de la virtud positions Bernardo de Balbuenas work in an Atlantic context and hence interprets it as a political assertion of the natural right of peninsular émigrés to rule New Spain. The book offers an updated biography of Balbuena that reminds us of his ties to the Iberian Peninsula, and traces the pre-modern rhetorical,
scientific, geopolitical, and economic paradigms upon which Grandeza mexicana is designed. Thus, the work analyzes Balbuenas encomium of Mexico City as a political prise de position in favor of peninsular émigrés like Balbuena himself, who are allegedly endowed with the moral and intellectual virtues needed to direct the spiritual and temporal life of the viceroyalty, and against the morally deficient criollos and the barbaric Indians. This book invites us to reassess the role that Balbuena and Grandeza mexicana play in the cultural history of present-day Mexico.