Dense but excellent. I felt this was a critical reading particularly after reading Thornton’s Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World. While I found myself taking a lot of notes and consulting other sources while reading this book, it examines an extremely revealing period in nascent modernity. The arguments about Catholicism, the Slave Trade and Africans being inseparable from the formation of Western modernity and the primacy of politics in the period felt the most compelling to me. I hope to read more of Bennett’s work in the future, but advise only reading this book if you have some knowledge of Atlantic Historiography and are looking for a challenge.