In spite of a great quantity of recent literature the history of Spanish and Spanish American oceanic navigation and trade before 1720 is very uneven in its availability and level of sophistication. Some aspects, eras and episodes are well known; others, such as the connections between certain specific areas and the carrera, have been studied hardly at all. Yet others, such as the dimensions and significance of smuggling, can never be known accurately. The subject has also suffered from a tug-of-war between romance and statistics. Some writers have emphasized treasure, pirates, hurricanes, galleons and derring-do on the Spanish Main. The other school has counted the ships, the crews, the crossings, the prices, the cargoes, until the graphs and tables reduce the whole epic to banality.

The literature on the expansion of Europe is immense and there are many approaches. One of the most imaginative and comprehensive surveys is Pierre Chaunu, L’expansion européenne du XIIIe au XVe siècle (Paris, 1969), a fine example of the author’s emphasis on economics and geography. Another general survey, more closely tied to men and events, is Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420–1620 (Cambridge, Mass., 1952). Carlo Cipolla in his entertaining Guns, Sails and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–1700 (New York, 1966), summarizes what we know about the role of material advantages in Europe’s advance overseas. John H. Parry, Europe and a Wider World, 1415–1715 (London, 1959), explains early routes, ships, navigation and trade.