Jeremy Adelman, Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007)

摘要

This book aims at a broad interpretative account of the dissolution of the Iberian empires, conveyed through a long, close analysis of colonial relationships between Spain and Portugal and their Atlantic-facing territories in South America. There is not enough space in this review to identify all the arguments of this lengthy and detailed analysis, but three key themes stand out. One is that these empires became unstable in the later eighteenth century when, in an effort at improvement, they were forced into geographic expansion and capital accumulation, which in turn led to international wars that made their survival more problematic.