A leading scholar of Spanish American independence, Jaime E. Rodríguez O. brings to the English-speaking world a collection of articles that he published in Spanish over the last two decades. The volume aims to put the political to the forefront of discussions on the creation of Spanish American nations, a long-term commitment of Rodríguez O.'s and a complex matter worth discussion in the case of such an influential scholar.
The first chapter is the most interesting and controversial. Rodríguez O. asserts “the long tradition of representation” in Spanish America, which in his sometimes-Whiggish view dates back to the conquest and climaxes with the 1812 Cádiz Constitution (p. 31). Rodríguez O.'s position differs from John Elliott's, who in Empires of the Atlantic World (2006) contrasted North America's robust local assemblies with the lack of representative spaces in Spanish America, a great challenge for the formation of independent republics. Rodríguez O. identifies...
