Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adelman, Jeremy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spanish colonies.

Sovereignty.

Colonies--Administration.

Economic history.

Autonomy and independence movements.

Sovereignty--History.

Latin America.

Spain--Colonies--Economic conditions.

Spain.

Spain--Colonies--Administration--History.

Latin America--History--Autonomy and independence movements.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (408 p.) : 5 halftones. 1 table.

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : Princeton Univ Press, 2009.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This book takes a bold new look at both Spain's and Portugal's New World empires in a trans-Atlantic context. It argues that modern notions of sovereignty in the Atlantic world have been unstable, contested, and equivocal from the start. It shows how much contemporary notions of sovereignty emerged in the Americas as a response to European imperial crises in the age of revolutions. Jeremy Adelman reveals how many modern-day uncertainties about property, citizenship, and human rights were forged in an epic contest over the very nature of state power in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic offers a new understanding of Latin American and Atlantic history, one that blurs traditional distinctions between the "imperial" and the "colonial." It shows how the Spanish and Portuguese empires responded to the pressures of rival states and merchant capitalism in the eighteenth century. As empires adapted, the ties between colonies and mother countries transformed, recreating trans-Atlantic bonds of loyalty and interests. In the end, colonies repudiated their Iberian loyalties not so much because they sought independent nationhood. Rather, as European conflicts and revolutions swept across the Atlantic, empires were no longer viable models of sovereignty--and there was less to be loyal to. The Old Regimes collapsed before subjects began to imagine new ones in their place. The emergence of Latin American nations--indeed many of our contemporary notions of sovereignty--was the effect, and not the cause, of the breakdown of European empires.

Contents:

Empires that bleed

Capitalism and slavery on imperial hinterlands

Between war and peace

The wealth of empires

Spanish secessions

Brazilian counterpoints

Dissolutions of the Spanish Atlantic

Crossing the Rubicon

Revolution and sovereignty.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691142777

0691142777

9781400832668

1400832667

OCLC:

1249470856