Thanks for the response Jean and some very useful insights.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "reductive": is this my post, Paquette's work or that of Parry?
In relation to Paquette’s new book, I have seen nothing other than the blurb on the cover page. I do know that, whilst I might disagree with some of his conclusions, his book “Imperial Portugal” is an excellent example of modern historical scholarship. Paquette quite rightly adopts a very broad approach to the historical developments in Portugal and across the Atlantic to Brazil, although his earlier work on Spain (which I have not seen yet) is apparently much more top-down - although not entirely as introspective as some have suggested [see review by Stein who is perhaps not the most impartial of Paquette’s reviewers https://muse.jhu.edu/article/265080].
Parry has a sharper focus on scientific advances (astronomy, mathematics, cartography) to help explain developments in navigation and the transformation of maritime exploration. – but this is not the same as offering a simplistic, teleological history of maritime “reconnaissance” and empire. Neither is the ordering in his work, as you quite rightly point out, of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English involvement in oceanic discovery, conquest and colonisation incidental. If you’re referring to my post, I think I’m arguing the opposite. That is, European conflict pre- and post- 1789 cannot simply be reduced to internecinal warfare within and between continental powers (and England – and I use this word deliberately as opposed to Britain). The Napoleonic Wars were, albeit not for the first time in history, decidedly global in terms of causality, range (or latitude, if you will ) and scale.
Bien amicalement
A