Forced Migration in the Spanish Pacific World

The wide geography of Eva Maria Mehl’s study—the Spanish Pacific world from Mexico to the Philippines—indicates the large and connected fields of scholarship to which this book will contribute, and with some considerable force. Yet its scope is even greater, for one of Mehl’s claims—well substantiated—is that military and penal transportation systems from Mexico to Manila were enmeshed in transportation systems around the Atlantic too. She does not frame her history as global, but it speaks very much to imperial and global history, and the history of globalisation particularly, given the human movements at the centre of the story. Considering the great reach of this book, it is especially pleasing to read its richly historiographical introduction. So many monographs—often at the behest of publishers—minimise historiographies these days, or relegate them to endnotes. It is to Mehl’s credit that the introduction to her book sets out a sequence of overlapping scholarly fields with great care and in considerable detail. And it is to Cambridge University Press’s credit that they continue to publish this literature as accessible footnotes, not inaccessible endnotes. The result is probably the best available literature review of the Spanish Pacific, the Iberian world and its particular relation to global deportation and convict transportation

Archaeology · Convict · Deportation · Economic history · Globalization · Historiography · Immigration · Political science · Publication · Relation (database · Scholarship · Scope (computer science · History · Latin American history and culture · Law