Spain’s Liberal Imperialism

Spain was perhaps the world’s greatest imperial power in the early-modern period, but few know about the new imperial ventures it attempted in the 19th century. In this episode, Scott Eastman, author of A Missionary Nation: Race, Religion, and Spain’s Age of Liberal Imperialism, 1841-1881, crisscrosses the Atlantic world to tell of these ventures in Morocco, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and West Africa. Along the way, he unpacks Spanish liberals’ views on race and religion within the context of the second wave of European imperialism in the 19th century.