Wartime Words and World Views: Six Recent Books on Spanish American Independence

It is a feature of modern nationhood that a declaration of independence is reified as a key inflection point, a specific moment in time during which a region and its people cease to be beholden to something else and begin to chart their own collective course. Independence thus represents both an end and a beginning. It is both a process and a goal. Independence is usually understood as a political act, a metaphorical coming of age, a goal achieved, and an event that brings hope. This collection of six recent books on independence in Age of Revolutions across the Atlantic world fit together to show how wartime worlds and worldviews may not fit as neatly into the textbook national story. They share an intellectual project of moving beyond the usual actors and narrative trajectories to introduce us to new perspectives on the events by looking at different regions and demographics: Austrian diplomats, British Foreign Office bureaucrats, Irish radicals, New England whalers, African traders, Chilean popular classes, Mexico City's night watchmen, and many others. These six authors tug at the standard chronology of Atlantic independence as well, pulling it back to the 1770s and extending its living impact into the 1850s. Taken together, they remind us that independence is a tricky concept, one that can look quite different depending on one's place in a broader matrix. Wars eventually end, but combative words and unreconciled worldviews collide and continue the struggle.