ABSTRACT
This article aims to assess what represented the introduction of the book as physical means of support to the diffusion of narratives in the historicizing of the Portuguese-Dutch War (1624-1654). To that end, it examines the contexts of publication of works printed in the Iberian Peninsula between 1625 and 1660, alert to the political commitments and editorial strategies of those involved in the task. It assumes as parti pris that the choice to offer readers a report in a loose pamphlet or rather in a quarto or folio book responded to specific circumstances and served conscious methods in order to make military exploits visible, procuring the socioeconomic and cultural rewards in dispute in the Ancient Regime. Furthermore, it argues that the writing of the history of that war had as narrators (in the broad sense), besides the European nobility, groups belonging to oversees elites. The analysis is based on concepts formulated by the historiography focused on the materiality of books and its advent in the Modern epoch, as well as on the studies about the Portuguese-Dutch War and its historicizing.
KEYWORDS:
Portuguese-Dutch war; Writing of history; Book