Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789 (review)

In the first of four projected volumes on Spain and its American empire, the Steins focused on the critical role of colonial silver in the making of a "pseudomercantilist" or rentier state. The result was an analysis, interdisciplinary in the best sense, in which the Steins argued that American silver impeded the formation of a dynamic bourgeoisie in Spain, and placed the onus of structural transformation—social, economic, and political—upon a group of political economists and civil servants who were only as successful as their patrons. That story concluded with the object lesson of the fall of the ministry of the Marques de Ensenada (1754), whose interference in the transatlantic trade ran afoul of the merchants of Cadiz and their French and Flemish correspondents.¹

This volume traces out events through the reign of Charles III (1756–1789). Faced with an evolving international economy, and growing pressure from within the Iberian peninsula to open the American trade to broader home participation, Charles III and his minister, the Marques de Esquilache, proceeded cautiously, but not cautiously enough. In 1766, Esquilache fell victim to what the Steins describe as a coup d'etat, and Charles' subsequent "reforming" ministers carried out their projects through "exhortation, study and more study" rather than by executive fiat (115). They also focused more narrowly on the Americas, the "colonial option" that promised greater results and less resistance. The centerpiece of these reforms was the so-called libre comercio, the genesis, evolution, and piecemeal implementation of which the Steins explore in remarkable detail. Throughout, the emphasis is upon the power of vested interests to frustrate reform and resist change, aptly symbolized by the isolation of Mexico from major commercial overhaul until 1789. The Steins call what emerged there even after that date "managed trade" (256). In the end, the impact of alterations in commercial policy on the metropolitan economy was limited: "Spain's late- developing economy remained basically agrarian, with minimal capacity for production and export of domestic manufactures" (221).

This study and its predecessor—which invite comparison to Gipson's work—are certain to become classics in the genre of Spanish imperial history, not only for their breadth of erudition but also for the depth of their archival research.² The exploitation of French sources is especially impressive and demonstrates the crucial role that French statesmen, merchants, and financiers played in resolving the transfer of American silver to Spain's creditors and suppliers. As the size of these transfers diminished under the weight of increasing foreign competition during the late eighteenth century, the French were forced into reconsidering whether "Franco-Hispanic economic relations would remain complementary rather than confrontational" (329). International economic historians will need to rethink the role of American silver in the evolution of the Atlantic economy during the eighteenth century because of the work of the Steins.

Admittedly, this is narrative economic history, more in Hill's style than that favored by cliometricians.³ Yet in its concern for the distorting effects of natural-resource rents on the institutions of empire tout court, the Steins engage a debate that is of immediate concern to economists and political scientists working on the problems of development. There can be no question that the ready availability of American silver profoundly affected Castile as much as oil affects the modern states of the Persian Gulf. Styles of intellectual discourse may have changed since the Steins began this project nearly forty years ago, but surely even their critics will concede that the results have been worth the wait.