Independence and Revolution in the Americas

During the half-century from 1776 to 1826, the political map of the Americas was dramatically redrawn. Over a vast arc of land stretching from the Great Lakes to Cape Horn, the boundaries of empire gave way to the borders of sovereign states as British, French, Spanish and Portuguese dominion retreated before the advance of revolution. Within fifty years, the great colonial empires in the West had largely disintegrated; on their ruins the modern community of American nation-states, formed by the United States and the countries of Latin America, began to take shape.