[10] His studies of the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish Empire helped the understanding of the problems confronting 16th- and 17th-century Spain, and the attempts of its leaders to avert its decline.
[7] His Richelieu and Olivares (1987) won the Leo Gershoy Award of the American Historical Association[13] and, in 1992, the Prize XVIIe.
In 2006, his book Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 was published by Yale University Press, winning the Francis Parkman Prize the following year.
[7] In 1995, Spain, Europe, and the Atlantic World: Essays in Honour of John H. Elliott, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Geoffrey Parker, was published by Cambridge University Press.
Elliott was hospitalised due to pneumonia and kidney complications, at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, on 5 March 2022.