Javier Francisco
Contact
Tel: +49 761 203-5452
Curriculum vitae
Projects:
"Imperial Methuselah: A New Theoretical Approach on Europe’s Rule in the Americas"
Looking at a historical world map of the Early Modern Era, we cannot help but wonder at the rise of European power. Emerging European empires would compete for territories, resources, commercial shares and diplomatic influence all over the world while their metropoles comprised only a small territorial fraction. Until the early 19th century, this expansion was most visible and resounding in the Americas. But what seems to be a linear story of imperial “success” was actually the result of complex developments, economic experiments, societal entanglements, ecological transformations, political turmoil and indigenous resistance and collaboration.
In this book project I propose a model to account for the interplay of friction and cooperation which resulted in multiple entry points for European expansion and structural cohesion. This study provides a comparative meta-analysis of eight empires and offers a model through which we can better understand imperial longevity in Early Modern America. Thus, the aim is not to replace well-established research on particular empires and colonies but to complement our interpretations with a macro narrative.
"Bio-Cultural Transformations in the Atlantic World"
Scientists and scholars across the disciplines are increasingly interested in understanding and explaining the loss of biological and cultural (that is to say, bio-cultural) diversity which we are currently witnessing around the world. In my research I investigate when these accelerated global transformations started: What were the contributing factors, how did the European empires trigger or accelerate these processes and how did the indigenous come into play? As a historian of imperial history during the Early Modern Era, I analyze case studies in the Atlantic World from the late 15th to the 19th century.
As part of this larger project, I’m currently studying commodity frontier in the Eastern Woodlands (working title: Reassessing the Commodity Frontier: temporal regimes in early colonial North America). This paper wants to reveal how social, economic and ecological temporal changes are key in understanding not only whether the commodity frontier could expand but also geopolitical changes, the degree of natural extraction and the particularities of the capitalist system in a given region. By adding temporal regimes, we can better understand the socio-economic and ecological penetration as well as conflict dynamics.
