How the Spanish Empire Was Built: A 400-Year History

by: Felipe Feández-Armesto (Author),Manuel Lucena Giraldo(Author)

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Publication Date: 1 Feb. 2024

Language: English

Print Length: 480 pages

ISBN-10: 1789148405

ISBN-13: 9781789148404

Book Description

‘A richly researched account of the clever, industrious and deeply practical men who followed in the footsteps, often literally, of Columbus, Cortés, Pizarro, Núñez de Balboa and others.’ – Wall Street Joual’Extraordinarily leaed, and gilded with linguistic flourishes.’ – Literary Review’In an age obsessed with global supply chains, instant communications, and global epidemics, there is much to be leaed from predecessors who first encircled the world, for better or worse.’ – Kris Lane, author of Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the WorldSixteenth-century Spain was small, poor, disunited and sparsely populated. Yet the Spaniards and their allies built the largest empire the world had ever seen. How did they achieve this?Felipe Feández-Armesto and Manuel Lucena Giraldo argue that Spain’s engineers were critical to this venture. The Spanish invested in infrastructure to the advantage of local power brokers, enhancing the abilities of incumbent elites to grow wealthy on trade and widening the arc of Spanish influence.Bringing to life stories of engineers, prospectors, soldiers and priests, the authors paint a vivid portrait of Spanish America in the age of conquest. This is a dazzling new history of the Spanish Empire, and a new understanding of empire itself, as a venture marked as much by collaboration as oppression.
‘A richly researched account of the clever, industrious and deeply practical men who followed in the footsteps, often literally, of Columbus, Cortés, Pizarro, Núñez de Balboa and others.’ – Wall Street Joual’Extraordinarily leaed, and gilded with linguistic flourishes.’ – Literary Review’In an age obsessed with global supply chains, instant communications, and global epidemics, there is much to be leaed from predecessors who first encircled the world, for better or worse.’ – Kris Lane, author of Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the WorldSixteenth-century Spain was small, poor, disunited and sparsely populated. Yet the Spaniards and their allies built the largest empire the world had ever seen. How did they achieve this?Felipe Feández-Armesto and Manuel Lucena Giraldo argue that Spain’s engineers were critical to this venture. The Spanish invested in infrastructure to the advantage of local power brokers, enhancing the abilities of incumbent elites to grow wealthy on trade and widening the arc of Spanish influence.Bringing to life stories of engineers, prospectors, soldiers and priests, the authors paint a vivid portrait of Spanish America in the age of conquest. This is a dazzling new history of the Spanish Empire, and a new understanding of empire itself, as a venture marked as much by collaboration as oppression.