Giesler’s book offers a history, aimed at a general audience, of the remarkable Spanish government official Francisco de Saavedra.

Francisco Arias de Saavedra y Sangronis was born in 1746 in Seville. As an adult, he joined the army and was soon recognized in the higher echelons of government; José de Gálvez, minister of the Indies, recognized his talents and sent him to that jurisdiction to tend to Spanish affairs there. Captured by the British, he was taken as a prisoner to Jamaica, which he realized was an excellent opportunity for espionage. After talking his way out of incarceration, he made his way to Havana, the Spanish base of operations in the Caribbean. The Spanish allied with the French, hoping to drive the British out of the area, and Saavedra, a genius in money matters, financed his lifelong friend Bernardo de Gálvez’s successful rout of the British from Pensacola in British West Florida. At this point, the dispirited and nearly bankrupt Americans turned in desperation to their allies, the Spanish and the French. Saavedra wrangled loans in record time from far and wide to pay for the Battle of Yorktown in 1781—a decisive conflict that effectively sealed the independence of the United States of America. From there, he went from strength to strength, even reluctantly becoming the Spanish prime minister for a time. Ever a modest man, he once said, “In one way or another this contrast between my true and apparent merit is one of the keys to my life.”

In a book that fairly bristles with endnotes and indices, one might expect to encounter very dry prose, but Giesler proves to be a graceful and often lively writer. This biography of Saavedra engagingly addresses all the momentous affairs in which he had a hand, and Giesler relies greatly on Saavedra’s diaries and letters. The author points out that his subject was not only savvy in financial matters but was also a talented administrator. The situation in Havana, for example, often pitted the old guard, who not only jealously guarded their privileges but were also overly cautious in military matters, against the young and rash—Bernardo de Gálvez being a good example of the latter. Saavedra, the author establishes, was the perfect go-between, compromiser, and schmoozer, who could handle people set in their ways and young fire-eaters. The powers back in Madrid, including his patron, José de Gálvez, saw the Central American colonies as simply cash cows—but Saavedra, the man who was actually there, in Cuba, in Mexico, and later in Venezuela, realized that the colonists had legitimate grievances and deserved respect and audience. Giesler reveals his subject’s prescience in realizing that if the colonists didn’t get that respect, they would eventually rise in revolt, which is, of course, exactly what happened. Saavedra died in Seville in 1819, perhaps the most respected man in all of Spain at the time—a man for whom the term “national treasure” is fitting.

A lively account of tumultuous times and a memorable man.