Bernardo de Gálvez

In 2014 Barack Obama bestowed honorary U.S. citizenship on Bernardo de Gálvez. Citing service rendered the Republic during the American Revolution, Obama expressed the nation's enduring gratitude for a man who “risked his life for the freedom of the United States” (p. 2). And yet, despite this display of devotion, very few Americans—save those living in towns such as Galveston, Texas, or Galvez, Louisiana—are aware of Gálvez and his numerous achievements. Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia's comprehensive biography should do much to dispel that obscurity. We follow Gálvez from his 1746 birth within a Malaga family of little consequence to his ascent through the ranks of the Spanish army and across a distinguished diplomatic career terminating (just before his death in 1786) in his appointment as viceroy of New Spain. His life traversed the vast reaches of the Bourbon Empire, and, in tracing the experiences of this one individual, Saravia is able to glean several important insights into the eighteenth-century Iberian Atlantic world

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