In An Aqueous Territory, Ernesto Bassi skilfully explores the dynamic interplay between the formation of geographic space and the creation of new geopolitical initiatives. Privileging the lived spatial realities of the inhabitants of the greater Caribbean world over the spurious claims of imperial territoriality promulgated from European capitals, Bassi sets out to re-conceptualize the history and geography of this complex region from the vantage point of New Granada during the tumultuous Age of Revolutions. The first two chapters delineate the “everyday acts of region formation” that, according to Bassi, worked to bring coherence and meaning to the Transnational Greater Caribbean (TGC) (81). Focusing on sailors and sea captains, Bassi argues that by the latter decades of the eighteenth century, the Caribbean had become a “de facto free trade area” centred on Kingston, Jamaica (26). Utilizing shipping records from Kingston, Bassi convincingly shows in Chapter 1 that both significant and minor New Granadan ports alike were enmeshed in broader inter-imperial trade networks. This analysis provides a helpful corrective to those studies of New Granada that misleadingly privilege Cartagena to the exclusion of smaller port towns. Chapter 2 analyses how ship captains and ordinary sailors served as vital conduits of news, information, and rumour. Bassi traces the voyages of several captains whose journeys linked the Spanish, Dutch, French, British, and Danish territories of the Greater Caribbean. These circuitous voyages, Bassi argues, facilitated the creation of alternative “geopolitical visions”, transforming the TGC into a “meaningful geographic space of social interaction” (57). However, sailors and captains were hardly the only mobile groups during this period. In Chapter 3, Bassi explores the maritime networks forged by the Cuna and Wayuu Indians with the British in Jamaica. By allying with the British, these indigenous groups could successfully resist repeated Spanish encroachments. By highlighting the physical mobility, technological proficiency, and political autonomy of these maritime Indians, Bassi illustrates how the construction of the TGC was a cosmopolitan endeavour.

Each of the remaining three chapters examines specific geopolitical projects that were imagined to be possible because of the dynamic and variable nature of the TGC. None of these projects proved especially successful in the long run, but they each represent intriguing glimpses of how the transition from European colonies to independent nations in the New World was anything but preordained (205). Chapter 4 elucidates specific “expansionist schemes” put forward by British adventurers and merchants after the American Revolution to keep the British Empire centred in the Atlantic, rather than shifting the imperial focus to India. Although there was no “unified British approach to Spanish America” during the last two decades of the eighteenth century (133), Bassi observes that the disparate plots and stratagems to bring Spanish American territory under greater British control reflect “the spirit of 1783” (127). While British imperial expansion into Spanish territory did not come to pass, the threat of such a development appeared enough for the Viceroy of New Granada to argue for more significant trade with the British, to preclude any potential invasions. Despite the viceroy's best efforts, however, New Granada never became a major cotton supplier for the British. Chapter 5 follows Simón Bolívar's journey to Jamaica and later to Haiti, seeking foreign support for Spanish American independence. It is clear from Bassi's analysis that Bolívar significantly misjudged the degree to which the British would support his cause, and he left Jamaica embittered. Only reluctantly did the Liberator agree to partner with Haiti. What perhaps is most striking is how effective Spanish lobbying efforts were in keeping Britain officially neutral in the wars of Spanish American independence. Such diplomatic efforts failed in Haiti, due to Alexandre Pétion's calculation that by supporting the spread of republicanism in the New World, Haiti would gain legitimacy and diplomatic recognition. Geopolitical considerations of this sort were what determined the success and failure of Bolívar's “Caribbean adventures” (142). Chapter 6 examines the debates over whether the newly independent Republic of New Granada should present itself as an “Atlantic” nation or a “Caribbean” one. For most Colombian political elites, the goal was to situate their country “firmly within the community of Euro-Atlantic, civilized nations” (181). A strategy of self-presentation in this regard was in the pages of nineteenth century geography textbooks and even “geographical catechisms” (190) that sought to introduce new toponyms, such as the “Atlantic Sea” or the “Sea of the Antilles”, while usually avoiding any mention of the “Caribbean”. Bassi also draws attention to dissenting voices, such as Juan José Nieto, who advanced “an alternative nation-making project that privileged the Caribbean coast over the Andean interior” (199). A federalist who was twice governor of Cartagena, Nieto strove not only as a politician but also as a geographer and novelist to represent the Caribbean lowlands as possessing a rich and civilized heritage that could serve “as a source of national pride and patriotism” (200). Despite the best efforts of Nieto and others, the dominant vision promoted in Bogotá ended up carrying the day.

Throughout this work, Bassi excels at uncovering elusive yet consequential linkages that tied a diverse range of territories and peoples, and in so doing, the analytical utility of the “Transnational Greater Caribbean” is demonstrated. However, Bassi desires to go further than this by arguing that various groups in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also derived emotional attachment and social meaning from a “sense of regionness” tied to the TGC (73). Unfortunately, this claim does not entirely convince. For instance, while countless numbers of sailors were “well acquainted with commercial hubs” across many imperial boundaries, it does not necessarily follow that they thus felt “part of” the “Greater Caribbean's transimperial social field” (73). Similarly, it is not evident from the documentation analysed by Bassi that maritime Indians developed “a sense of belonging to a larger community” comprised of non-Spanish Europeans, and perhaps Africans as well (108 and 111). To his credit, Bassi often prefaces these more speculative claims with phrases such as: “it is not hard to imagine” (72), “it is not difficult to imagine” (73), and “it seems reasonable to assert” (108). Even if not always entirely persuasive, An Aqueous Territory nevertheless provides an absorbing panorama of “alternative geographies” and lived histories (204), which altered the Greater Caribbean world in both overt and subtle ways during this turbulent era of upheaval.