Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. America, Iberia, and Africa before the conquest -- Amerindian civilizations on the eve of European conquest -- The Iberian world in the late fifteenth century -- Atlantic Africa in the fifteenth century -- First encounters in the New World -- 2. The age of conquest -- The conquest of Mexico -- The conquest of Peru -- The ebbtide of conquest -- Black participation in the age of conquest -- Conundrums and the Columbian exchange -- 3. Ruling new world empires -- Imperial organization and administration -- The colonial church -- 4. Population and labor -- Changes in the colonial population -- Indian labor -- Slavery and the slave trade -- 5. Production, exchange, and defense -- The mining and sugar industries -- International trade and taxation -- Defense -- The colonial economy -- 6. The social economy : societies of caste and class -- Evolution of colonial societies -- The elites -- Urban and rural middle groups -- The broad base of colonial society -- 7. The family and society -- Family : the foundation of colonial society -- Women in colonial societies and economies -- The culture of honor -- 8. Living in an empire -- Colonial settings -- Daily life in the colonies -- The cultural milieu -- 9. Imperial expansion -- The Spanish colonies, 1680s to 1762 -- Brazil in the age of expansion -- New Spain, Peru, and the reforms of Charles III -- The emergence of the periphery in Spanish America -- 10. Crisis and collapse -- An era of war and crisis for Spain and Portugal -- Independence in South America -- Independence in Mexico and Central America -- Cuba : the "ever faithful isle" -- Spain after the loss of the mainland empire -- Epilogue.