This authoritative study of colonialism in the Spanish empire at the end of the eighteenth century examines how the Spanish metropole attempted to preserve the links to its richest colony in the western Atlantic, New Spain (Mexico), in the face of international developments. Continuing the approach in Silver, Trade, and War and Apogee of Empire, Barbara and Stanley Stein detail Spain's ad hoc efforts to adjust metropolitan and colonial institutions, structures, and ideology to the pressures of increased competition in the Old and New Worlds.In reviewing the attempts at reform, the authors explore networks of individuals and groups, some accepting and others rejecting the Spanish transatlantic trade system. They provide accounts from both sides of the Atlantic to show how economic policy, imperial goals, and consequent social divisions and factionalism in New Spain and Spain undermined the government's efforts at economic and political adjustments. The Steins draw upon a wide range of archival material in Mexico, Spain, and France to place the waning of the Spanish empire in an Atlantic perspective and to show how Spain came to the verge of collapse in a time of revolution and the beginning of the transition from commercial to industrial capitalism.Comprehensive and carefully researched, Edge of Crisis explains the broad array of factors that led up to the French invasion of Spain in early 1808.
PrefacePart One: Autumn of Proyectismo1. Continuity and Crisis, 178917972. War and the Colonies: Aranda and Godoy3. The Late ProyectistasPart Two: Fissioning of New Spain4. Reorganizing New Spain's External Trade: The Effects of Comercio Libre, 178917965. A Hegemony Threatened: Mexico City and Veracruz6. Mining and Its Fissures7. Export Agriculture: Growth and Conflict8. Comercio Neutro / Comercio Directo9. ""Informal"" Comercio Neutro, 18041808Part Three: Financing Empire10. Consolidación: Spain11. Consolidación: New Spain12. Strange Saga: The Transfer of New Spain's Silver, 18041808Part Four: Toward the Second War of Succession13. ""Treasures in the New World""14. ""La tempestad que nos amenazaba""15. The National Drama, Act I: Conspiracy at the EscorialBy Way of ConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex
""A stupendous effort to broaden and deepen the contours of the 'Spanish Atlantic''a felicitous phrase and concept'at the end of the eighteenth century... I await the next volume from the Steins with eagerness, since it will undoubtedly round out this vast historical interpretation of the Spanish Atlantic with which they have already regaled us.""
