While there has been much scholarly emphasis on the importance of letrados in the early modern Iberian empires, Stuart McManus argues that a culture of orality in general, and the classical rhetorical tradition in particular, was an equally significant factor not only in furthering ideological coherence but also in giving agency to both Iberian and Iberianized non-European orators when navigating the structures of imperial power (p. 3). In developing this argument, McManus adopts what he calls a “meta-geographical” perspective as well as a comparative and “polycentric approach,” focusing on places under the formal political control of Iberian monarchies (such as the Americas), allied states and protectorates (like Genoa and Tuscany), and the Portuguese commercial zones and missionary fields in Africa as well as South and East Asia (pp. 8, 11).
Chapter 1 places the humanist rebirth of the classical oratorical tradition during the Renaissance in the context of sixteenth-century European...
