ABSTRACT
In this classic text Henry Kamen shows how Spain achieved world power in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries by examining crucial political events and foreign policy during the reigns of each of the nation’s rulers, from Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth century to Philip V at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Kamen also explores the essential factors that distinguished the Spanish experience, from the gold and silver of the New World to the role of the Inquisition and the fate of the Muslim and Jewish minorities. He identifies the essential fragility of Spain’s material resources as the main reason why it never succeeded in achieving success as an imperial power. He also examines the origins of the eternal obsession of Spaniards with their own failings and alleged ‘decline’, arguing that the perception of ‘decline’ distorts what really happened in their history..
For undergraduate courses in Spanish history and Early Modern Europe.
