Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-01T14:11:17.369Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Gayangos: Prescott's Most Indispensable Aide

from III - GAYANGOS IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

C. Harvey Gardiner
Affiliation:
University of Southern Illinois
Cristina Alvarez Millan
Affiliation:
Department of Medieval History, UNED, Madrid
Claudia Heide
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh
Get access

Summary

In his pursuit of the endlessly interdependent activity that is historical scholarship, William Hickling Prescott was peculiarly dependent. His dependent nature sprang from three basic circumstances: the state of Spanish and Spanish American historical studies in the United States, wherein his trail-blazing contributions antedated the existence of public collections – hence the necessity that he build a significant personal library; the state of his physical being, which found him blind in one eye and able to employ the other one in an erratic and occasional fashion only; and the inner nature of the man, who was so enamored of family, friends, Boston, personal comforts, and fashionable society that the very thought of foreign travel in search of historical materials never received serious consideration in the course of his entire career. In addition to his overweening stay-at-home social side, Prescott was furthermore such a romantic that he quite possibly held illusions about Spain, Mexico, and Peru – the focal points of his histories – that jealously precluded his ever visiting them. To counter these intellectual, physical, and social-psychological obstacles, Prescott knew a financial wellbeing that permitted him to move ahead with his historical studies. In so doing he depended upon many for many things.

Type
Chapter
Information
Pascual de Gayangos
A Nineteenth-Century Spanish Arabist
, pp. 106 - 131
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×