Introduction: Archives, architecture, and the data of the new world -- The Archive of the Indies in 1818 -- The source archives -- Archive as apparatus -- Data retrieval -- The monsters of reason -- Epilogue: Archival memory -- Appendix A. The finances of the Archive of the Indies: account books and receipts, 1785-1832 -- Appendix B. From archivists to soldiers: the employees of the Archive of the Indies, 1785-1844 -- Appendix C. Parasols, shields, butterfly: the document case metopes of the Archive of the Indies, 1786-88
Summary:
"The Invention of the Colonial Americas is an architectural history and media-archaeological study of changing theories and practices of government archives in Enlightenment Spain"-- Provided by publisher