Notre Dame professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto to discuss Spanish imperialism in early Louisiana

Notre Dame professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto will discuss “The Spanish Monarchy in North America in the Eighteenth Century” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018, at the Historic NewOrleans Collection Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres St., New Orleans. The talk is the latest in the annual Francisco Bouligny lecture series, which examines Louisiana’s Spanish influences.

The vestiges of 18th-century Spanish rule are apparent in the street names and architecture of New Orleans’s oldest neighborhoods. Fernández-Armesto will investigate the larger role of Spanish imperialism in North America. His presentation questions how, despite internal weaknesses, Spaniards acquired vast amounts of land and out-performed imperial rivals, indigenous and European alike. Along the way, he broaches a broader problem: what made pre-industrial empires work, often against the odds and against reasonable expectations?

Fernández-Armesto is the William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, and his distinctions include Spain’s national prizes for research in geography and food writing, as well as the World History Association Book Prize in 2007.

Admission to the event is $10 and free for THNOC members. Tickets are available at my.hnoc.org or by calling (504) 598-7146. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. This lecture is presented with support from the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.