Curiously, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra begins his foreword to this book by asserting that “there was no such thing as the Iberian Atlantic” (p. vii). He objects to stereotypes in Atlantic history that contrast a brutal, backward South with a more enlightened, forward-looking North, and his solution “requires that we step back from typologies based on generalizations about various national-imperial Atlantic experiences” (p. xii). While this rejection of a subdivided Atlantic historiography is thought provoking, it sketches a problematic brief for the editors of a volume focused on the Ibero-American Atlantic. To the credit of both the editors and authors, however, the essays collected here present valuable insights into the entangled histories of Spain and Portugal and their former American colonies.
In addition to the foreword, the editors' introduction, and an epilogue by Joan Ramon Resina, the volume includes 12 essays ranging temporally from the Columbian encounter to the aftermath of the...
