Empires of the Atlantic World

Name: Empires of the Atlantic World
Author: JH Elliott
ISBN: 030012399X

by JH Elliott

This is a comparative study of the British and Spanish colonial world from 1500 until the end of this 300-year era. John Elliott is a brilliant historian of Spain, and here he turns to New Spain and to the Spanish Atlantic world, comparing it to the British world on major elements. Some parts of it show the congruence between the two, the parallel way they developed. Other parts show the differences, the contrasts between the Spanish and the British colonies. For comparative history between the British and the Spanish in America, there’s no better book – it’s excellent. He’s talking about two empires simultaneously. He shows the different ways the Spanish and British imperial worlds developed and the ways they differed. It’s very different from a history that is basically national in its character, because his perspective is transnational. Atlantic history is transnational, it’s an effort to get away from narrowly nationalistic interpretations. And this book is a study in transnational comparative analysis, not just the narrative of an empire’s history. Elliott covers all of the major areas of economic and political and especially religious development, Catholic and Protestant, and contrasts them. It’s not a narrative history of exploration and conquest, it’s an analytic book about the characteristics of the two main Atlantic empires as they developed, in contrast to each other.

Recommended by

Bernard Bailyn

"This is a comparative study of the British and Spanish colonial world from 1500 until the end of this 300-year era. John Elliott is a brilliant historian of Spain, and here he turns to New Spain and to the Spanish Atlantic world, comparing it to the British world on major elements. Some parts of it show the congruence between the two, the parallel way they developed. Other parts show the differences, the contrasts between the Spanish and the British colonies. For comparative history between the British and the Spanish in America, there’s no better book – it’s excellent. He’s talking about two empires simultaneously. He shows the different ways the Spanish and British imperial worlds developed and the ways they differed. It’s very different from a history that is basically national in its character, because his perspective is transnational. Atlantic history is transnational, it’s an effort to get away from narrowly nationalistic interpretations. And this book is a study in transnational comparative analysis, not just the narrative of an empire’s history. Elliott covers all of the major areas of economic and political and especially religious development, Catholic and Protestant, and contrasts them. It’s not a narrative history of exploration and conquest, it’s an analytic book about the characteristics of the two main Atlantic empires as they developed, in contrast to each other."

Atlantic History · fivebooks.com