This epic history compares the empires built by Spain and Britain in the Americas, from Columbus' 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.

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'A handsome and fascinting study of the two colonisations, so different in their scope, duration and outcome. The contrasts in administration, treatment of the natives and economic viability are intriguing.' - Christian Tyler, Financial Times Magazine

'[It] is a quite masterly work of comparative history by a great historian which combines in a single thesis two complex societies and sheds fresh light on each.' - Michael Howard, Times Literary Supplement

'As with all Elliott's books, the architecture and the scope are breathtaking. Empires of the Atlantic World covers almost every imaginable aspect of the imperial experience, from politics and economics to art and law, religion and literature, science and technology: all encompassed within a single narrative which takes us from discovery in 1492 to the eve of final independence of the Spanish-American colonies in 1830.' - Anthony Pagden, London Review of Books

'Elliot writes wonderfully readable history and in Empires he offers a rattling good tale describing European expansion to the New World that will captivate readers for years to come.' - Simon Middleton, BBC History Magazine