The second and more general of these monographs sets out to describe works published in Spain that offered information about the Anglo-American revolution and institutions; French translations of key U.S. revolutionary documents and related tracts; “early works in Spanish written to foment revolution in Spanish America;” and what was published in Spanish during the independence period itself to acquaint Spanish Americans with basic Anglo-American political texts. As the author’s investigation was principally carried out in a limited number of U.S. research libraries, part of his data is based on second-hand references, and some pertinent items (especially newspaper articles) go unmentioned. He also expressly leaves out many works that only indirectly or tangentially touched on U.S. ideas and institutions, and he carefully disclaims any thought of ascribing actual influence to what was merely available to exert influence. But Simmons does make some reasonable inferences concerning possible effects of the publications he studies. Moreover, by treating systematically and with admirable concreteness a topic all too often dismissed in broad-brush generalizations, he has made a truly valuable contribution to the study of intellectual antecedents of Latin American independence.
The other entry in this joint review is a scholarly, detailed study of one of those “early works in Spanish,” indeed the earliest of them all, and of its author. The Italian-born Puglia reached Philadelphia by way of Spain and in 1794 published a bitter attack on the Spanish monarchy and colonial rule entitled El desengaño del hombre. Whether anyone in Spanish America outside official circles laid eyes on it cannot be proven, but it gained some notoriety from the denunciations of it. As he follows Puglia’s later career, Simmons throws still further light on the role of Philadelphia as a center for dissemination of revolutionary propaganda.
