Studies of diplomacy can offer a cosmopolitan, panoramic view of historical change. Utilizing understudied documents housed in Austria's state archive, Milagros Martínez-Flener does exactly that, by uncovering new perspectives on politics and international relations during the period 1808–25. William Spence Robertson, the venerable twentieth-century historian and one of the founders of the Hispanic American Historical Review, partly inspired this line of research, noting the lack of in-depth scholarship on Austrian attitudes toward Spanish American insurgencies (p. 43). While largely focusing on four men serving in prestigious posts within an absolutist government, the book nonetheless shows how Austrian diplomats brought a critical gaze to the unfolding events of the age. They drew on both traditional and unconventional sources and even benefited from information on the ground after the establishment of a consulate in Brazil in 1817. One claimed that the Spanish administration failed to prioritize the conflict in the Americas,...

You do not currently have access to this content.