This intricate monograph aims to analyse ‘the political ideas animating the government reformers of Spain and its Atlantic empire in the second half of the eighteenth century’ (p. 1). In this period, it has been argued conventionally by generations of scholars, the ministers of Charles III (1759–1788) and, to a lesser extent Charles IV, his successor until his abdication in 1808 in favour of Ferdinand VII, sought to implement a multi-faceted programme of modernisation of imperial structures – inspired by ‘regalist governance’ rather than mere ‘enlightened absolutism’ (p. 6) – designed to restore Spain to the rank of a first-rate power. Evidently in the long run the quest was in vain, as would be demonstrated by the gradual loss of momentum in the application of the reform programme even prior to 1796, when Spain's entry as an ally of revolutionary France against Britain in what turned out to be a long cycle of international conflicts led inexorably to, first, the collapse of the theoretical peninsular monopoly of trade between Europe and Spanish America, and in due course to the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy itself in 1808, with the installation of a brother of Napoleon Bonaparte as king Joseph I of Spain.

Recent contributions to the historiography of the Bourbon reforms in the Hispanic world have concentrated upon a series of loosely connected themes. These include, first, discussion of the extent to which their inspiration derived from not only the monarchy's reaction to the humiliation suffered at the hands of Britain during the Seven Years War but also an imperial programme devised during the reign of Philip V by José de Patiño, his Secretary of State for the Indies, Navy and Treasury in the period 1726–1736. This sought to strengthen trade between Spain and America through the creation of a strong navy, and fiscal incentives for peninsular exporters. Secondly, why and when did they lose momentum: with the demise of Charles III's Minister of the Indies, José de Gálvez, in 1787 and that of the king himself in the following year, or several years later, as a reaction in Madrid to both continued resistance to their implementation by conservative viceroys and other senior officials in America and fears of the transmission of radical ideas from revolutionary France? Finally, to what extent did the impact of the Bourbon reforms in America pave the way for the Revolutions for Independence of the second decade of the nineteenth century? The overriding issue has been intense debate about the extent to which the programme as a whole should be seen as cautious, incomplete and tardy rather than well-planned and comprehensive. The author reverts to an interpretation in vogue until the late-1970s, but increasingly challenged since then by both European and American scholars, by reviving the earlier consensus which stressed the programme's cohesion and coherence and overlooked procrastination in its application.

The volume has four main chapters, each tightly written and supported by extensive notes. The first underscores the importance of geopolitical rivalries, especially between Spain and Britain, in shaping Bourbon imperial policies. It also explains the ambivalent nature of Spanish modernisers towards this imperial rival, admired for its example of how to grow rich from colonial trade, a strong navy and agricultural development, but disliked for its deep-rooted disdain towards backward, Catholic Spain and its erosion of the latter's monopoly of trade with America through both contraband and the legal supply of manufactures to Cádiz merchant houses for re-export. Chapter two grapples with the inherent contradictions embraced in the quest of Spain's imperial policy-makers to promote public happiness by strengthening state power at the expense of not only the Church but also other privileged groups and corporations perceived to be hampering commercial expansion and agricultural modernisation. Chapter three focuses more explicitly upon attitudes and reactions to the reform programme in Spanish America, with particular reference to Cuba, Florida and Louisiana, defined as representatives of the ‘imperial periphery’ (p. 94). The deliberate exclusion from this analysis of the mainland viceroyalties, notably New Spain and Peru, has some justification, but it involves overlooking armed resistance to the intensification of absolutism – particularly as manifested in tighter fiscal impositions – in the Andean region during the period studied. Chapter four recapitulates the conclusions of the author's 2007 article in this Journal (vol. 39, pp. 263–298) by analysing the extent to which the colonial elites represented in the new consulados established in the 1790s sought, with considerable success, in collaboration with sympathetic local administrators to influence crown policies in the commercial and economic spheres. It emphasises their role in securing the introduction of neutral trade in 1797, but, as a consequence of the concentration upon the periphery, does not explore the profound divisions within the older merchants guilds of Lima and Mexico about the desirability or otherwise of the clamour for genuine free trade. A very brief Conclusion restates the argument that the Bourbon reform programme for Spanish America had a logical, coherent foundation, despite the fact that it was applied with flexibility because of the crown's desire to preserve ‘relatively harmonious relations with local elites’ (p. 153).

The abundant archival sources employed for this study are primarily in Spanish repositories, but valuable material from Buenos Aires, Havana and Santiago de Chile has also been exploited, particularly for chapter three. The extensive bibliography of printed sources, although concerned primarily with Spain and Spanish America, has useful subsections on art history, enlightened absolutism, regalism, British imperial history, the Enlightenment and Naples (where, of course, Charles III reigned from 1724 until inheriting the Spanish crown in 1759). Overall this is a work of remarkable erudition, which is recommended to all students of the Bourbon reforms in Spain and Spanish America, even though some of them, like this reviewer, might not be inclined to fully accept its central thesis that the programme's positive features outweighed its flaws.