This book focuses on a key period in Latin American history, the transition from colonial status, via the revolutions for independence, to national organization. The essays provide in-depth studies of eighteenth-century society, the colonial state, and the roots of independence in Spanish America. The relation of Spanish America to the age of democratic revolution and the reaction of the Church to revolutionary change are newly defined, and leadership of Simon Bolivar is subject to particular scrutiny. National organization saw the emergence of new political leaders, the caudillos , and the marginalization of many people who sought relief in popular religion and millenarian movements.Acknowledgements Preface Passage to America Arms and Men in the Spanish Conquest of America The Colonial State in Spanish America Spanish America's Poor Whites: Canarian Immigrants in Venezuela, 1700-1830 The Colonial Roots of Latin American Independence Revolution as a Sin: The Church and Spanish American Independence Simon Bolivar and the Age of Revolution Bolivar and the Caudillos The Quest for the Millennium in Latin America: Popular Religion and Beyond Index
'...one of the best Latin American history primers...a most enjoyable experience for the dedicated Latin Americanist and a fine piece of scholarship.' - History: Reviews of New Books
'...a useful volume for anyone looking for syntheses of large issues of colonial Latin America and its trials...' - Jeremy Adelman, The Historian
John Lynch is Emeritus Professor of Latin American History in the University of London. He is the author of numerous works on Spain and Latin America, including
The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change 1598-1700, Bourbon Spain, 1700-1808, The Spanish American Revolutions 1808-1826, Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas 1829-1852, Caudillos in Spanish America 1800-1850.