The Collapse of the Spanish Monarchy: An Imperial or Atlantic Phenomenon?

In the last three decades interpretations on Spanish American independence have been radically renovated. From a necessary outcome of proto-nationalist or de-colonial movement, they are nowadays considered the result of the crises of the Spanish monarchy, produced by the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 1807-08. However, more recent studies have highlighted the limits of the imperial dimension in understanding the collapse of the Iberian monarchies. Rather they have rescued the global extent of the phenomenon, highlighting the connections with the other Atlantic Revolutions of the period. This paper intends to point out the relevance of both perspectives - imperial and Atlantic - in explaining the end of the Spanish empire in South and Central America in order to stress the legs of the imperial formations in post-colonial contexts.