In this book, Peralta Ruiz analyzes the network of personal and institutional relations that in the eighteenth century connected the secretaries of state and of the navy and the Indies (secretarios de Estado and secretarios del Despacho de Marina e Indias) with individuals in the New World. Arguing that these networks were established by appealing to family ties and common origin, he posits that equally important to their constitution and maintenance was the ability of those on the American side to provide their friends, perhaps protectors, with useful information, mainly in the form of manuscripts or publications that appealed to these powerful secretaries because they were useful to them personally, or could be helpful in the administration of the monarchy. Among such works were apologetic essays, political and economic projects, and historical narratives. These were important to the secretaries because, working in Madrid, they needed constant input regarding what was happening and what should be done in the Americas. Dependent on such information, the secretaries were willing to repay it by promoting the authors to offices, a promotion that they controlled in practice.In order to prove the above, Peralta Ruiz analyzes six different cases, tracing a connection between writing and promotion as well as writing and dismissal. These included the relationship between Dionisio de Alcedo y Herrera and José Patiño, and between Sebastián de Eslava and the Marqués de la Ensenada. Peralta Ruiz also studies how and why the Junta Extraordinaria de Indias arrived at a conclusion favoring free trade, and the way secretaries fomented the writing of histories. The case of José Eusebio Llano Zapata allows Peralta Ruiz a counterpoint. He argues that despite great efforts at establishing contact with important members of the court by writing to them, about them, and for them, Llano nevertheless failed to acquire a patron. In the chapter dedicated to him, Peralta Ruiz attempts to understand why.Although the main arguments are hidden rather than exposed in the text, this book nevertheless makes some very important claims. First, early modern administration, if such a figure ever existed, should be portrayed as a dense web of personal relationships. Those who obeyed royal orders were perhaps motivated by respect for the monarch, but they were also encouraged to collaborate because of ties linking them to other individuals or groups. As Giovanni Levi once argued, power is relational and, as most of the recent literature affirms, the Spanish state was weak, rather than centralized or absolutist. Perhaps most important, Peralta Ruiz demonstrates that cultural production, namely writing, had a major role in constructing the social networks that enabled government. This implies that rather than judging pieces of writing only according to content, we must also evaluate their role as facilitators of human interaction. Interested in the personal relationships that made possible an “Atlantic world,” Peralta Ruiz argues that not only people, goods, values, and institutions crossed the ocean. Also created, enhanced, exchanged, and modified were widely extending networks of clientelism and patronage. Although theoretically these networks depended on personal contact, because writing was involved they could also be created from afar.Atlantic history is still unpopular in Spain. Most historians specialize either in one side of the Atlantic or the other; they are historians either of Spain or of Spanish Amer-ica. Those who do care about the larger structures usually study the Spanish monarchy; that is, they include in their analysis not only Spain and the Americas but also the expansion to other European territories, as well as to Asia and Africa. This book will hopefully encourage the adoption of a third framework, not necessarily superior, but certainly also important, by which to analyze Spain and Spanish America.