John Elliott's long-awaited comparison of colonial Spanish and English settlements in the New World comprehensively covers topics ranging from social and political structures, religion, conversion, land, labor, colonization schemes, and immigration to both the encounter and wars with indigenous peoples. In the first part of the book, Elliott contrasts the comparatively uninvolved British state relative to the Spanish government in initially regulating New World settlements. Spain was able to put an efficient political and economic bureaucracy in place early in its settlement of the New World. By contrast, the British initially exercised less royal authority, lacked the bureaucracy or administrative apparatus to supervise the colonies, ineffectually collected revenues for the metropolis, and were unable to regulate effectively the trading and colonizing ventures. Even the Anglican Church showed lesser involvement than the Spanish Catholic Church in conversion. But Elliott regards these apparent deficits favorably. In the weakness of the British state he sees the basis for developing “a strong sense of the people's rights” (182). He views imperial intervention in the colonial economies negatively, remarking that at least the British colonies possessed the means to resist such involvement through representative assemblies. In this fashion it becomes clear that he views the political strengths of the Spanish government as drawbacks and the weaknesses of the British state as advantages.

The relative standing of the two powers reversed in the eighteenth century as British economic might grew and Spain's deteriorated. While the decline of Spain's control over its colonies indisputably began in the seventeenth century, Elliott sees the transfer of the economically insignificant Caribbean islands from Spain to England in 1680 as confirming Spain's “loss of global supremacy” (220). Despite locating the date of Spain's decline with a political/military defeat, Elliott later notes that the loss of supremacy was linked to Spain's increasing inability to monopolize its trade with the New World, its growing financial difficulties at home, and its inability to control increasingly independent native-born elites.

For the eighteenth century, Elliott points out several interesting parallels and contrasts. More immigrants were drawn to the more prosperous British colonies with their expanding economic opportunities than to Spanish ones. Both empires expanded into regions outside the traditional economic centers, albeit with distinct ambitions. Both faced increased military challenges; neither found satisfactory solutions. Both faced tax revolts and eventual loss of the majority of their American colonies.

Elliott's stance on British colonization remains far too flattering and misses many opportunities to make critical points. For example, he notes that English economic interest in the New World grew only with the increasing demand for sugar and tobacco but fails to emphasize that demand grew for largely slave-produced goods. He even sees a positive advantage in the greater British exclusion of indigenous and black people from participation because that tactic “gave English colonists greater freedom to maneuver” (410). He makes no secret of his admiration for Britain's political system (compared to Spain’s). He emphasizes the former's stronger “sense of the people's rights” (182, 350–51), representative assemblies, and English liberties and at one point seems to blame Spain's decline on its lack of British political virtues.

There is at least one amusing typographical error. Spain and Portugal divided the unconverted world between themselves using a line agreed upon at the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). According to the treaty the dividing line was fixed using leagues (an old maritime measure). Although the globe only contains 360 degrees, in Elliott's text the line separating the overseas claims of Spain and Portugal apparently circled the globe more than once since it lay 370 degrees beyond the Cape Verde Islands.

In the final hundred pages Elliott tackles the process by which both Anglo and Hispanic colonists shed their imperial chains, a subject usually requiring a separate book. Elliott smoothly transitions to the topic of independence, however, developing parallel Anglo and Hispanic stories that attest to the range of his knowledge. In choosing a lengthy historical time period, Elliott creates an extensive framework for future comparative work on the history of the Americas.