Overview

Amsterdam Jews appeared up to the mid-17th century as Braudelian “great Jewish merchants.” However, the New Christians, heretic judaizantes in the eyes of the Inquisition, dispersed around the world group sui generis, were equally crucial. Their religious identities were fluid, but at the same time they and the “new Jews” from Amsterdam formed a part of economic modernity epitomized by the rebellious Netherlands and the developing Atlantic economy. At the height of their influence they played a pivotal, albeit controversial, role in the rising slave trade. The disappearance of New Christians in Latin America had to be contextualised with inquisitorial persecutions and growing competition in mind.

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Reviews

""In einer Zeit, in der in der akademischen Welt neben „Antizionismus“ solche Begriffe wie die dekoloniale kritische Theorie eine immer wichtigere Rolle auf dem Campus spielen ist das Buch Szlajfers, wie bereits eingangs erwähnt, also ein wichtiger Beitrag zur Weltgeschichtsforschung, der Ibero-Romanistik und Lateinamerikaforschung und auch zur Judaistik. Gerade auch Leserinnen und Leser, die sich mit dem Katholizismus befassen oder die sich der katholischen Kirche nach wie vor verbunden fühlen, sollten dieses Werk ebenso eingehend studieren, zeigt es doch die Spätfolgen der Urkatastrophe des sephardischen Judentums und der Vertreibung der Juden aus Spanien 1492 auf."" – Arno Tausch, Bloemfontein und Innsbruck in ZWG-01-2023. Tune in here to a recent episode of the Spanish radio show Radio Sefarad, where Professor Pablo Dreizik (Buenos Aires University) discussed and reviewed the book.

Author Information

Henryk Szlajfer is Professor Emeritus at the Polish Academy of Sciences and Warsaw University. He has published on Latin American economic history, including Economic Nationalism and Globalization: Lessons from Latin America and Central Europe (Brill, 2012). He also co-edited Western Europe, Eastern Europe and World Development 13th–18th Centuries: Collection of Essays of Marian Małowist (Brill, 2010).

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