J.H. Elliott

I asked my history professor friend for some recommendations on European history and she told me to read Elliott. Imperial Spain 1469-1716 was a masterful book and a great companion on our trip to Spain. Now I have discovered Spain, Europe and the Wider World, a collection of essays that contains a lot of great material about historians thinking about thinking about history. The depth and width of knowledge and the insights are breathtaking. My own feeble attempts to understand history will be a lifelong adventure. At the moment, I am taken with his views on the emergence of the modern state and the emergent nationalism of its people. This is in contrast to the inherent instability of premodern states in the 1600's. It gives one a different perspective on federal power in the present. James Scott is good on this, too. I can see now that I am going to have to read Elliott's Empires of the Atlantic World; Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 if I am to get much farther in understanding American history.