Douglass North once emphasized that development takes centuries, but he did not have a theory of how and why change occurs. This groundbreaking book advances such a theory by examining in detail why England and Spain developed so slowly from 1000 to 1800. A colonial legacy must go back centuries...

Early Spanish anti-slave trade discourses, 1802-1814 -- Defining a new discourse on the slave trade: absolutist nuances, Toreno's commitment, and Varela's utopia -- Abolitionism, exile, and the "necessary evil" argument, 1823-1835 -- Political exclusion, racism, and abolitionism in the 1840s --...

"This volume recasts our understanding of the practical and theoretical foundations and dynamic experiences of early modern imperialism. The imperial encounter with political economy was neither uniform across political, economic, cultural, and religious constellations nor static across time....