Soriano takes aim at a conundrum of the Spanish American independence struggle: how did Venezuela, a colonial afterthought with almost no homegrown print or salon culture, become the first province to declare independence from Spain in 1810? She argues that novel ways of spreading news and ideologies widened political consciousness in Venezuela during the Age of Revolutions.

Revolutionary Saint-Domingue was the cipher for this transformation and a catalyst for three anti-monarchical conspiracies at the end of the eighteenth century. French and French-Caribbean texts, songs, and refugees were vilified by some, embraced by others, and manipulated as reference points by all. Ultimately, “late colonial Venezuela witnessed the emergence of an incipient public sphere that, grounded in semiliterate forms of knowledge transmission and oral information, allowed the participation of a socially diverse population in a wide range of political debates, questioning the monarchical regime and colonial rule, the socioracial hierarchies of colonial society, and the system of slavery” (3).

The book is divided into two parts. In Part One, three chapters dissect the media of revolutionary ideological transmission. Chapter 1 focuses on literacy. Increased accessibility and secularization of reading material led to a more politically charged climate in late eighteenth-century Venezuela. Social networks, auctions, transcriptions, tavern discussions, and covert book importation all eroded traditional class barriers to literacy. The decentralized circulation of books frustrated prohibition efforts. Chapter 2 takes a close look at the transmission of revolutionary materials. As Venezuela lacked a printing press until 1808, handwritten transcriptions of contraband texts proved an essential medium for spreading news of Saint-Domingue and appeals to join the revolutionary fight against monarchism. Chapter 3 examines non-written communication of revolutionary ideology through rumors, songs, and refugee testimonials. The influx of refugees from Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe aided oral transmission.

Part Two explores three late eighteenth-century conspiracies that preceded the struggle for independence from Spain. The 1795 Rebellion of Coro informs the discussion of Afro-Venezuelan political consciousness in Chapter 4. Soriano argues that even though the rebels were incensed by new Bourbon tax burdens, Saint-Domingue's revolutionary specter “functioned as a term of contention, a powerful reference that set the parameters of the political struggle and negotiation between opposing socioracial groups in Coro” (122). Soriano compares Coro to La Guaira's Gual y España Conspiracy of 1797 in Chapter 5. The conspiracy desired the establishment of free trade, the abolition of slavery, the elimination of Indian tribute, and harmony among the races. It was both racially diverse and built on disparate media such as manuscripts, dialogues, short stories, songs, and barbershop conversations. In Chapter 6, Soriano concludes with the Maracaibo Conspiracy of 1798. Unlike the Gual y España Conspiracy, which adapted revolutionary ideals from abroad to local contexts, the Maracaibo Conspiracy was directed by foreigners and lacked solid social networks in Venezuela.

Soriano offers one of the most concrete studies of how the slave rebellions of Saint-Domingue affected the political climate of Spanish American colonies on the eve of independence. This is a ground-level view of the Age of Revolution in the circum-Caribbean that avoids familiar tropes of philosophes, libertatodes, and the print revolution. Soriano combines thorough analyses of revolutionary ideological transmission, racialized discourse, and democratized media in a way that adds to the work of Julius Scott (The Common Wind, 2018), Marixa Lasso (Myths of Harmony, 2007), and Ada Ferrer (Freedom's Mirror, 2014), and challenges that of Ángel Rama (The Lettered City, 1996). This is an excellent book for classroom adaptation because wonderful human stories are sprinkled throughout the archivally grounded narrative. For example, a mulatto boy was arrested in 1797 for idly humming French Republican songs (70).

At times, the monograph repetitiously attaches ideas of textual dissemination and phrases like “Contagion of Liberty” to the various conspiracies. These minor rhetorical shortcomings do not detract from an essential study of the Age of Revolution in the Caribbean and of the ideological origins of Latin American independence movements.