Spain: The Centre of the World 1519-1682

ISBN-13: 9781408862285 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 608 str.

Robert Goodwin

Opis

In the sixteenth century, the Spaniards became the first nation in history to have worldwide reach--across most of Europe to the Americas, the Philippines, and India. The Golden Age of the Spanish Empire would establish five centuries of Western supremacy across the globe and usher in an era of transatlantic exploration that eventually gave rise to the modern world. It was a time of discovery and adventure, of great political and social change--a time when Spain learned to rule the world.It was also a time of great turbulence and transition, which fueled an exceptional flourishing of art and literature and inspired new ideas about international law, merchant banking, and economic and social theory. Chronicling the lives and achievements of a cast of legendary characters--great soldiers like the Duke of Alba, artists and writers like El Greco, Velazquez and Cervantes, and the powerful monarchs who ruled over them--Robert Goodwin delves into previously unrecorded sources to bring this tumultuous and exciting period to life. Spain is a revealing portrait of an empire at the height of its power and a world at the dawn of a new age.

Recenzje

This is history as it should be but so rarely is. Never, since Richard Cobb's great books on ancien régime France, has an English historian written on the history of a foreign country so much from the inside, with such intense love and flair and intimacy. The result is a gourmet's delight of a book: to be devoured greedily and digested at length and with pleasure David Starkey

O autorze

Dr Robert T. C. Goodwin was born and educated in London and was awarded his PhD by the University of London for his thesis on Golden Age Spain. His first major book, Crossing the Continent 1527-1540: The Story of the First African-American Explorer of the American South, was published in 2008. He is currently a full-time writer and historian and is a Research Associate at University College. He divides his time between London and Seville.