Spain and the American Revolution: New Approaches and Perspectives ed. by Gabriel Paquette and Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia (review)

If historians building the concept of vast early America now recognize the contingent, multi-ethnic and trans-imperial nature of the two centuries after Europeans' arrival in North America, this excellent edited collection suggests the existence of a vast early republic as well. Gabriel Paquette and Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia brought together scholars working across traditional national historiographies to re-evaluate the earliest years of the relationship between the United States and Spain by incorporating the concept of entangled histories. This volume benefited from its collective origins as the authors have clearly read and interacted with each other's work. For example, some characters—notably John Jay, Thomas Pinckney, the Conde de Floridablanca, Diego de Gardoqui, José de Gálvez, and Bernardo de Gálvez—appear in several of the articles. The editors also made a laudable effort to include the work of early-career scholars alongside those of more established reputations. The book provides a set of high-quality, archivally based articles that accomplishes its editors' goals of broadening awareness of the extent of Spain's participation in American revolutionary events.

Several of the articles take a biographical approach with the intention of shrinking broader trends to a human scale. In each of these cases, the authors have taken care to use an array of primary sources in more than one language. María Bárbara Zepeda Cortés offers a detailed examination of José de Gálvez's strategic plan for Spain's participation in the American Revolution, which included buying time; lobbying; placing like-minded allies in key positions; creating a complex financial operation based in Havana, New Orleans, and Mexico; and appointing a Crown agent to oversee operations and information flows. Benjamin Lyon's article on John Jay's diplomatic efforts in Madrid to negotiate the Jay–Floridablanca Treaty reminds readers that history is made not through formal, dry, official channels alone; an individual actor's personality, outlook, and temperament also matter. Mary-Jo Kline's article on Sarah Livingston Jay, "a republican lady in Spain," makes a nice complement to Lyon's work, covering some of the same events from Jay's wife's perspective.

Other authors explore military aspects of the American Revolution, aiming to show readers that the revolutionaries received foreign support not just from France but from Spain as well. Larrie D. Ferreiro offers a detailed examination of the Bourbon armada, linking events around and across the Atlantic Ocean during the American Revolutionary years, from Toulon to Pensacola to Trafalgar. Manuel Lucena-Giraldo also emphasizes Spain's significant assistance in seagoing operations, arguing that the scientific orientation and strategic foresight of Spanish naval reformers led them to build a modern fighting fleet with deployment plans that maximized its impact. Ross Michael Nedervelt also discusses the aqueous theater, outlining the components of Spanish and American cooperation to exclude their shared rival Great Britain from key coastal zones. All three of these articles emphasize the importance of the United States' revolutionaries having access to Spanish ports in Europe and the Caribbean Zone for safe retreat, supplies, and spying operations.

A third thematic group of articles internationalizes the American Revolution by showing readers that related conflicts occurred in unexpected geographic locations. Eric Becerra offers a looks at the complex inter-imperial struggle that took place in Spanish Louisiana, a place that turned into a crucible of New World liberalism as American republicans moved southward in search of land, religious freedom, access to markets, and local autonomy. John William Nelson offers a similarly insightful look at experience of the American Revolution along the Great Lakes, a zone in which the Spanish imperial strategists made a concerted effort to establish a significant permanent presence in the riverine interior by building key relationships with Indigenous communities. And venturing to borderlands even further afield, Emmanuelle Perez...