An enthralling account of the entwined histories of Britain, Spain, and their empires in the Americas This epic history compares the empires built by Spain and Britain in the Americas, from Columbus's arrival in the New World to the end of Spanish colonial rule in the early nineteenth century. J. H. Elliott, one of the most distinguished and versatile historians working today, offers us history on a grand scale, contrasting the worlds built by Britain and by Spain on the ruins of the civilizations they encountered and destroyed in North and South America. Elliott identifies and explains both the similarities and differences in the two empires' processes of colonization, the character of their colonial societies, their distinctive styles of imperial government, and the independence movements mounted against them. Based on wide reading in the history of the two great Atlantic civilizations, the book sets the Spanish and British colonial empires in the context of their own times and offers us insights into aspects of this dual history that still influence the Americas.

List of Illustrations vii
 List of Maps xi
 Introduction. Worlds Overseas xiii
 Note on the Text xxi
 Part 1. Occupation
 Intrusion and Empire 3(26)
 Hernan Cortes and Christopher Newport; motives and methods
 Occupying American Space 29(28)
 Symbolic occupation; physical occupation; peopling the land
 Confronting American Peoples 57(31)
 A mosaic of peoples; Christianity and civility; coexistence and segregation
 Exploiting American Resources 88(29)
 Plunder and `improvement'; labour supply; transatlantic economies
 Part 2. Consolidation
 Crown and Colonists 117(36)
 The framework of empire; authority and resistance
 The Ordering of Society 153(31)
 Hierarchy and control; social antagonism and emerging elites
 America as Sacred Space 184(35)
 God's providential design; the church and society; a plurality of creeds
 Empire and Identity 219(36)
 Transatlantic communities; creole communities; cultural communities
 Part 3. Emancipation
 Societies on the Move 255(37)
 Expanding populations; moving frontiers; slave and free
 War and Reform 292(33)
 The Seven Years War and imperial defence; the drive for reform; redefining imperial relationships
 Empires in Crisis 325(44)
 Ideas in ferment; a community divided; a crisis contained
 A New World in the Making 369(34)
 The search for legitimacy; the end of empire; the emancipation of America: contrasting experiences
 Epilogue 403(9)
 List of Abbreviations 412(1)
 Notes 413(68)
 Bibliography 481(36)
 Index 517