In this debut work, Scott Eastman tackles the complex issue of nationalism in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Spanish Atlantic empire. Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic challenges the idea that nationalism arose from the ashes of confessional society. Rather, the tenets of Roman Catholicism and the ideals of Enlightenment worked together to lay the basis for a "mixed modernity" within the territories of the Spanish monarchy.
Drawing on sermons, catechisms, political pamphlets, and newspapers, Eastman demonstrates how religion and tradition cohered within burgeoning nationalist discourses in both Spain and Mexico. And though the inclusive notion of Spanish nationalism faded as the revolutions in the Hispanic Atlantic world established new loyalty to postcolonial states, the religious imagery and rhetoric that had served to define Spanish identity survived and resurfaced throughout the course of the long nineteenth century.
Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic skillfully debates the prevailing view that the monolithic Catholic Church — as the symbol of the ancien régime — subverted a secular progression toward nationalism and modernity. Eastman deftly contends that the common political and religious culture of the Spanish Atlantic empire ultimately transformed its subjects into citizens of the Hispanic Atlantic world.