SPAIN AND THE LOSS OF AMERICA. Timothy E. Anna. Publisher: University of Nebrasca Press. Year: 1983.

Títol: Spain and the Loss of America

Author: Timothy E. Anna

Language: English

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Year: 1983

ISBN: 0-8032-1014-0

Pages: 343

Format: 14,50 x 22,00 cm

Finishing: Fabric and jacket

REVIEW:

Many books have been written about the wars for independence in Spanish America, but few have devoted much attention to Spain's attempts to fashion policies and means that would preserve her overseas empire. This is the first book of its kind to focus on the policy debates and decisions of Ferdinand VII, the high councils, and Cortes during the four major eras of government between 1808 and 1825. Indeed, it is the only comprehensive study of Spain's responses to the American rebellions as a whole.

What policies were debated and what decisions were made (or not made)? Was the government adequately informed about the state of affairs in America? How did it deal with American pleas and demands, especially those for free trade and proportional representation in the Cortes? Who influenced policy during the two Cortes eras? During the two absolutist eras? Why were the liberals as incapable as the absolutists of finding successful solutions? Most important, was there, at any time, a really workable overall policy for the pacification of America? These are the main questions that Timothy E. Anna examines in detail, using contemporany archival and published materials and the results of more recent scholarship.

His general conclusion in that Spain, confronted with the problem of how to loosen the bonds of empire without losing the benefits of empire, failed to devise a consistent and effective policy because its king, councils, and Cortes failed to reach a consensus on political as opposed to military solutions. Anna demonstrates convincingly that Spain's loss of America, though partly due to the Peninsular War and its aftermath, to financial weakness, and to personal caprice, was in large part the result of systemic dysfunctions in the machinery of imperial administration. As he has argued elsewhere, independence was not inevitable, it was the outcome of an explainable series of events.