ABSTRACT
The historiographies of the British and Spanish Atlantics have gone their own separate ways. Behind these separate trajectories lies the assumption that the United States and “Mexico” (that opaque and seemingly homogeneous space south of the Rio Grande comprising dozens of nation-states and peoples) are in fact two essentially (ontologically) different spaces. The literature on the British Atlantic is about the making of the United States, whereas that on the Spanish Atlantic is about elucidating the colonial roots of “Latin America.” These two worlds are destined never to meet.
