Historians of Spain and its empire have long engaged questions about the nature of Spanish imperialism and how the crown extracted wealth from its territories in the peninsula and the Americas through levying taxes. Anglophone historians of the mid-twentieth century portrayed the Spanish empire as absolutist, with nonnegotiable taxation. In the past three decades, however, historians of the Iberian world have shown that, far from an absolutist and centralized empire, the Spanish monarchy would be better understood as composite or polycentric, reliant on negotiation to secure the loyalty of subjects and corporate bodies throughout the empire to maintain its dominions. Thus, the Spanish monarchy created a more complex and nuanced system for governance and financing the imperial machine than previously thought.Central to these debates have been the fiscal structure and tools developed to collect revenue from the monarchy's territories. One of the fiscal instruments most often associated with the empire's absolutist and coercive nature is extraordinary taxation employed by the crown in times of financial need. Extraordinary loans, donativos (gifts), and services requested from Spanish vassals have been the subject of much controversy because they epitomized Spanish intrusion and preying on vassals' and colonies' wealth. Guillermina del Valle Pavón's Negociación, lágrimas y maldiciones offers a comprehensive overview of extraordinary taxation as an imperial tool in the early modern Spanish monarchy. Despite the different regions and periods examined by the essays, their breadth and depth allow the reader to draw meaningful conclusions about the nature of Spanish extraordinary fiscal instruments and the nature of the Spanish monarchy itself.The book brings together authors from Spain, Latin America, and the United States, three women and six men. It contains eight case studies of extraordinary taxation in Spain, New Spain, New Granada, Peru, and the Río de la Plata, spanning the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. By bringing together well-documented research and detailed analysis of different episodes when the crown requested loans, gifts, and services from its vassals during both the Hapsburg and the Bourbon periods, this book provides essential insights on the changing nature and evolution of the uses, formats, and strategies surrounding donativos, loans, and services requested by the crown. Extraordinary taxation, as portrayed by the contributing authors, was not a product of strict imposition; instead, it was “voluntary” and inscribed in the logic of reciprocity that permeated Old Regime societies (pp. 21, 106, 207, 241). The essays demonstrate that negotiation between corporate bodies and the monarchy was always central to the success of the extraordinary taxation efforts, especially under Bourbon rule in the eighteenth century. In Spanish America from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, local authorities, clergy, and corporations played crucial roles in mobilizing vassals to make these extraordinary funds available through their institutional and client-patron networks. Because of the brokerage of these three groups, which directly benefited from royal patronage, extraordinary donations were collected in both urban and rural areas. Furthermore, bureaucrats, clergy, and merchants, by mobilizing their networks to contribute to the crown's requests, allowed for the involvement of myriad subjects from various economic and social statuses. As a result, because donativos, loans, and services were inscribed in the logic of reciprocity, extraordinary taxation offered opportunities for political participation to groups that had not often had opportunities to provide the crown a gift (p. 8). As a result, contributions to donativos and loans were not exclusively made in bullion and precious gems; art objects, agricultural goods, and other forms of root and mobile property were also an integral part of these fiscal efforts (p. 109). The mechanisms for collecting and remitting donativos, loans, and services varied according to period and region. Because of colonial oligarchies' intermediary role in collecting and financing extraordinary taxation efforts, the financial arrangements involved in each episode did not necessarily have a detrimental effect on colonial societies. Corporations, bureaucrats, and the clergy used their leverage as brokers to negotiate rights, fiscal exemptions, and financial opportunities. At the same time, individual vassals could obtain offices, privileges, and other concessions from the crown by providing it gifts. Consequently, extraordinary taxation was not merely a coercive fiscal burden imposed on the vassals. It provided new channels of political participation and economic opportunities for colonial subjects.This collection of essays is the most robust, detailed, and vast examination of extraordinary taxation as a fiscal tool of the Spanish empire. Despite the absence of final reflections that take into consideration all the essays, it becomes clear that negotiation, participation of colonial oligarchies and plebeians, and client-patron networks were central to the success of each moment of extraordinary taxation. Most importantly, this book dispels the myth that donativos, loans, and services to the crown were coercive practices that alienated colonial subjects. On the contrary, according to the authors, extraordinary taxation offered opportunities for negotiation and expanded political participation to Spanish vassals. This book will undoubtedly become required reading for economic historians and historians of early modern empires.