The Golden Age: The Spanish Empire of Charles V
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Product Description
Product Description
Charles V, Emperor of Europe and the New World, is the central figure in the second volume of Hugh Thomas's great history of the Spanish Empire. It begins with the return of the remnants of Magellan's expedition around the world in 1522 and ends with Charles's death in 1558. In the decades between, the Spaniards conquer Guatemala, Yucatan, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru and Chile, and control the banks of the mighty River Plate; the audacious conquistador Francisco de Orellana journeys down the Amazon, Cabeza de Vaca walks from Florida to Mexico, Juan Vazquez Coronado pioneers into New Mexico and Hernando de Soto vainly pursues worldly riches in Florida, Mississippi and Georgia.
Hugh Thomas writes vividly, conveying the conquerors' almost disbelieving sense of what they were achieving. The discovery and subjugation of so many native peoples raised enormous controversy within Spain about how they should be treated, a debate Thomas explores perceptively, with an eye for resonances have lasted centuries. Hugh Thomas brings alive one of the most extraordinary and influential moments in High Renaissance and world history.
About the Author
In 2008 Hugh Thomas was made a Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in France and in 2009 received the Calvo Serer Prize, The Boccacio Prize, and Nonino Prize in Italy. He is the author of, among other books, The Spanish Civil War, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, The Suez Affair, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, An Unfinished History of the World, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés and the Fall of Old Mexico, The Slave Trade and the first volume of his Spanish Empire trilogy, Rivers of Gold, which was reissued to coincide with publication of the second volume.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Hugh Thomas has authored two brilliant books about the Spanish conquest of the Americas, The Conquest of Mexico and Rivers of Gold, the latter work being the first volume of a trilogy about Spanish history from Columbus to Philip II. Unfortunately this second volume comes nowhere near the quality of those earlier works.
Thomas has always been fascinated by people's family pedigrees in his works. What used to be an eccentricity, is now a hindrance disrupting the narrative flow. The reader is constantly distracted by lengthy descriptions of the newly introduced men's family origins. As the book has a large cast of characters, those digressions really tax the reader's patience without really adding anything to the story.
But the problems go deeper than that. The whole structure of the book is disjointed: one story is started, only to be interrupted by another, and it might take hundreds of pages before the original narrative's thread is picked up again. A lot was going on in the Americas during the time span of this book, and as a result the book is a bewildering collection of raids, nasty little wars and civil wars, daring treks of exploration as well as the most famous story of them all, Pizarro's conquest of the Incas. Thomas would have done well to concentrate on the most important of these ventures and devote less detail to others.
The book also has some editorial mistakes, the most obvious being the title of Book IV, 'Counter Reformation, Counter Renaissance' - there is not a word of these subjects in that book! (Nor anywhere else in The Golden Age.)
The Golden Age could have been so much better: research is still sound, and maps again are great. But while Thomas's earlier works were a pleasure to read, this one was a chore.
Thomas has always been fascinated by people's family pedigrees in his works. What used to be an eccentricity, is now a hindrance disrupting the narrative flow. The reader is constantly distracted by lengthy descriptions of the newly introduced men's family origins. As the book has a large cast of characters, those digressions really tax the reader's patience without really adding anything to the story.
But the problems go deeper than that. The whole structure of the book is disjointed: one story is started, only to be interrupted by another, and it might take hundreds of pages before the original narrative's thread is picked up again. A lot was going on in the Americas during the time span of this book, and as a result the book is a bewildering collection of raids, nasty little wars and civil wars, daring treks of exploration as well as the most famous story of them all, Pizarro's conquest of the Incas. Thomas would have done well to concentrate on the most important of these ventures and devote less detail to others.
The book also has some editorial mistakes, the most obvious being the title of Book IV, 'Counter Reformation, Counter Renaissance' - there is not a word of these subjects in that book! (Nor anywhere else in The Golden Age.)
The Golden Age could have been so much better: research is still sound, and maps again are great. But while Thomas's earlier works were a pleasure to read, this one was a chore.
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