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Crisis in an Atlantic Empire

Spain and New Spain, 1808-1810

Barbara H. Stein and Stanley J. Stein

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The capstone of a research endeavor begun by Barbara Stein and Stanley Stein nearly sixty years ago, this volume concludes their masterful tetralogy on Spanish economic and Atlantic history.

With a compelling narrative that weaves together story and thesis and brings to life immense archival research and empirical data, Crisis in an Atlantic Empire is a finely grained historical tour of the period covering 1808 to 1810, which is often called "the age of revolutions."

The study examines an accumulation of countervailing elements in a spasm of imperial crisis, as Spain and its major colony New...

The capstone of a research endeavor begun by Barbara Stein and Stanley Stein nearly sixty years ago, this volume concludes their masterful tetralogy on Spanish economic and Atlantic history.

With a compelling narrative that weaves together story and thesis and brings to life immense archival research and empirical data, Crisis in an Atlantic Empire is a finely grained historical tour of the period covering 1808 to 1810, which is often called "the age of revolutions."

The study examines an accumulation of countervailing elements in a spasm of imperial crisis, as Spain and its major colony New Spain struggled to preserve traditional structures of exchange—Spain's transatlantic trade system—with Caribbean ports at Veracruz and Havana in wartime after 1804. Rooted in the struggle between businessmen seeking to expand their economic reach and the ruling class seeking to maintain its hegemonic control, the crisis sheds light on the contest between free trade and monopoly trade and the politics of preservation among an enduring and influential interest group: merchants.

Reflecting the authors’ masterful use of archival sources and their magisterial knowledge of the era’s complex metropolitan and colonial institutions, this volume is the capstone of a research endeavor spanning nearly sixty years.

Reviews

Reviews

This book is a gold mine for the sheer amount of primary sources brought to the surface...[and] a valuable contribution to the shelf of any historian dealing with the independence era in any of the Spanish colonies.

The authors' research is clear and meticulous, with extensive quotes from sources in Spanish and French... it is a book that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in European expansion, Atlantic maritime competence, and Hispanic revolutions.

Stein and stein leave is a fascinating account of the entangled relations between money and power, between Europe and the Americas on the eve of economic liberalism. This meticulous study of policy making under duress may have an underlying structural argument about the brittleness of the Spanish ancient regime, but it never loses sight of the contingencies and complexities of rulership. It is a tour de force.

Taken together, the four works are a vital reference point for the study of the Hispanic Atlantic in its period of resurgence and crisis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Crisis in an Atlantic Empire is a fine culmination, a gripping, learned, and revelatory work that makes the reader look anew at the Hispanic world in the age of revolution.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
808
ISBN
9781421414249
Table of Contents

Prologue
Part One: Metropole
1. A National Drama, Act II: Aranjuez
2. Bayonne
3. Dos de Mayo: Insurgency
4. Sevilla: The Struggle for Supremacy in Spain and New Spain
Part Two: Colony
5. A Contested

Prologue
Part One: Metropole
1. A National Drama, Act II: Aranjuez
2. Bayonne
3. Dos de Mayo: Insurgency
4. Sevilla: The Struggle for Supremacy in Spain and New Spain
Part Two: Colony
5. A Contested Authority
6. New Spain's Cuban Counterpoint
7. The Powerful and Insecure: Mexico City'sAlmaceneros, 1808 191
8. The Audiencia de México, Iturrigaray, and Talamantes
9. Melchor Talamantes: Criollo Exponent of New Spain's Interests
10. Sevilla's Comisionados and Mexico City's Juntas
11. Viceroy Iturrigaray: Criollos and a Viceroy's Grand Design
12. Anatomy of a Colonial Coup d'État: Mexico City, 1808
Part Three: Metropole
13. Junta de Sevilla, Consejo de Castilla, and the Genesis of the Junta Central
14. Junta Central: Ideologues and Ideology
15. Junta Central versus Junta de Sevilla: The Colonial Question
16. Financing the Resistance in Spain
17. Dissolution of the Junta Central
18. Regencia and Junta de Cadiz
19. The Pivotal Orden of 17 May 1810
20. Colonial Insurrection and the Call for the Cortes
Part Four: Colony
21. An Eroding Colonial System: New Spain, 1808–1810
22. Fissures in the Colonial Elite: Merchants
23. Fire under the Embers: Between Preemptive Coup and Insurrection
24. The Regencia's Comisionados and Bishop-Elect Abad y Queipo
25. Oprimidos y Opresores
26. "No Hay Más Recurso Que Ir a Coger Gachupines"
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

Barbara H. Stein

Barbara H. Stein (1916-2005) was an independent historian and former bibliographer for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal at Princeton University's Firestone Library.
Featured Contributor

Stanley J. Stein

Stanley J. Stein is the Walter S. Carpenter Professor in Spanish Civilization and Culture, Emeritus, at Princeton University.