Dimensions
163 x 242 x 41mm
How did a barren, thinly populated country, isolated from the rest of Europe, become the world's first superpower?
Henry Kamen's superb new book re-creates the dazzling world of Imperial Spain, from the capture of Moorish Granada and Columbus's first voyage in 1492, to its expansion into Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and the opening up of the frontiers in Texas and California in the eighteenth century.
Drawing on the accounts of those who witnessed these great events, whether Aztec chroniclers, Italian explorers or Filipino sultans, Kamen balances the wonders of the Empire (the first sight of the Pacific, the astonishing voyages of the Manila galleons) with the horrors - the slavery, disease, terror and waste of human life it entailed.
There is no better account in English of this time. Henry Kamen demonstrates how the traditional view of the Spanish Empire as the all-conquering enemy of Protestant Europe has distorted our knowledge of its achievements.
