Chris Storrs's book is a welcome counterpoint to the dominant thrust of the scholarship on eighteenth-century Spain and its empire, which tends to focus on the Atlantic and to neglect Spain's long-standing possessions and strategic interests in the Mediterranean. In this rich and erudite political, diplomatic, and military history, Storrs examines the first half of the eighteenth century, which corresponds to the reign of Philip V. The narrative begins with the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, which resulted in the replacement of the Hapsburg by the Bourbon dynasty, and concludes with the War of the Austrian Succession. In particular, Storrs wishes to recover Spain as an expanding power on the offensive and not the defensive, above all in North Africa and Italy.
This effort is by no means an innocent recasting of Spain's place in Europe but rather a polemical one. Building on his earlier study The...
