Brian R. Hamnett offers a comprehensive and comparative assessment of the independence era in both Spanish America and Brazil.

Brian R. Hamnett is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of History at the University of Essex. He has travelled and researched widely in Latin America, and in Spain and Portugal. His published works have focused primarily on Mexico in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with interest also in Peru, Colombia and Brazil.

Part I. One Sole Monarch: 'One Sole Nation' - Advocates, Critics, and Challengers: 1. Negotiation, networks, linkages; 2. An alternative vision? Andean perceptions of the Hispanic monarchy; 3. The idea of metropolis and empire as one nation; Part II. Salvaging the Greater Nation: Constitutionalism or Absolutism?: 4. Iberian monarchies in crisis: juntas, congresses, constitutions; 5. Hispanic America - violence unleashed; 6. The first Spanish constitutional experiment: the 'one sole nation' and its opponents (1810-14); 7. The counter-revolution and its opponents (1814-20); Part III. Shattering the Greater Nation: Fragmentation, Separate Sovereign States, and the Search for Legitimacy: 8. Metropolitan Iberia - focus of disunion (1820-30); 9. The divergence of the American territories (1820-30); 10. Independence - territory, peoples, nations; Final reflections; Bibliography; Index.