Nearly all the Spanish and Portuguese books in the Department were collected and given to the Library by the late Philip Hofer, founding Curator of the Department. They reflect his personal taste and his awareness of the historical importance of such a collection - foreword.

Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700 was first published in 1984. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Spanish and Portuguese expansion substantially altered the social, political, and economic contours of the modern world. In his book, Lyle McAlister provides a narrative and interpretive history of the exploration and settlement of the Americas by Spain and Portugal. McAlister divides this period (and the book) into three parts. First, he describes the formation of Old World societies with particular attention to those features that influenced the directions and forms of overseas expansion. Second, he traces the dynamic processes of conquest and colonization that between 1492 and about 1570 firmly established Spanish and Portuguese dominion in the New World. The third part deals with colonial growth and consolidation down to about 1700. McAlister's main themes are: the post-conquest territorial expansion that established the limits of what later came to be called Latin America, the emergence of distinctively Spanish and Portuguese American societies and economies, the formation of systems of imperial control and exploitation, and the ways in which conflicts between imperial and American interests were reconciled. This comprehensive history, with its extensive bibliographic essay and attention to historiographic issues, will be a standard reference for students and scholars of the period.

This 2-volume book on the literature of Spain and Portugal represents an extraction from Bouterwek's most significant critical work entitled Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit seit dem Ende der dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (History of Poetry and Eloquence from the Close of the Thirteenth Century), in which the author has taken an historical and critical survey of the literature of the principal nations of Europe. The first of the following volumes is devoted to the history of Spanish, and the second to the history of Portuguese Literature. The subdivisions of the work correspond with periods marked out by certain revolutions in taste, produced by the rise of eminent writers, or by other influential circumstances. These epochs in literary cultivation form convenient resting places for the student, and contribute to exhibit in a clear point of view the circumstances by which the advancement of polite learning has been accelerated or retarded. The specimens, which are numerous, and a great portion of which are selected from very scarce works, cannot fail to prove highly acceptable to the lovers of the literature of Spain and Portugal. For a general and comprehensive knowledge of that literature they will be found amply sufficient, and to those who wish to pursue its study more in detail, they will afford most useful assistance. In such a course of study, great advantage may also be derived from the numerous bibliographical notes introduced by the author.