Imperial Spain: 1469-1716

From Ferdinand and Isabella to dissolution of the Empire. Parts on America and the Conversos are best.

Despite its' age, this is still a first rate introduction to Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Excellent history of Spain covering the period of 1469-1716, a period I am especially interested in because of my interest in exploration and European encounters with Asia. There are excellent reviews of this book on these pages; they say it all: very well researched and written, mainly enjoyable

Show More

and written so you can skip those sections you have no interest in.

Show Less

This book discusses mostly the domestic politics of the Spanish monarchy and the economic and diplomatic challenges it faced during the years indicated in the title. The author possesses great skill for narrative explanation in broad strokes, so the book is a pleasure to read. I would have expected

Show More

it to include bit more material about Spain's American colonies and how they influenced the homeland, but the author's later work Empires of the Atlantic World can be recommended to readers interested in Spanish Colonialism. I also thought the second half of the book was less informative than the first, because the number of personalities who exercised authority in the Spanish monarchy seems to have increased quite a lot toward the end of this period. It would perhaps have been a good idea to emphasize the economic reasons of the Spanish decline a bit more, and individual decisions-makers a bit less. Nevertheless, the first half of the book is a good case study of how European monarchies functioned in this time period, and especially how strongly the quality of government depended on the personal characteristics of the monarch and how critical succession problems could be.

Show Less