For nearly two centuries Spain was the world's most influential nation, dominant in Europe and with authority over immense territories in America and the Pacific. Because none of this was achieved by its own economic or military resources, Henry Kamen sets out to explain how it achieved the unexpected status of world power, and examines political events and foreign policy through the reigns of each of the nation's rulers, from Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth century to Philip V in the 1700s. He explores the distinctive features that made up 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. In an entirely re-written text, he also pays careful attention to recent work on art and culture, social development and the role of women, as well as considering the obsession of Spaniards with imperial failure, and their use of the concept of 'decline' to insist on a mythical past of greatness. The essential fragility of Spain's resources, he explains, was the principal reason why it never succeeded in achieving success as an imperial power. This completely updated fourth edition of Henry Kamen's authoritative, accessible survey of Spanish politics and civilisation in the Golden Age of its world experience substantially expands the coverage of themes and takes account of the latest published research.

For nearly two centuries Spain was the world's most influential nation, dominant in Europe and with authority over immense territories in America and the Pacific. Because none of this was achieved by its own economic or military resources, Henry Kamen sets out to explain how it achieved the unexpected status of world power, and examines political events and foreign policy through the reigns of each of the nation's rulers, from Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth century to Philip V in the 1700s. He explores the distinctive features that made up 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. In an entirely re-written text, he also pays careful attention to recent work on art and culture, social development and the role of women, as well as considering the obsession of Spaniards with imperial failure, and their use of the concept of 'decline' to insist on a mythical past of greatness. The essential fragility of Spain's resources, he explains, was the principal reason why it never succeeded in achieving success as an imperial power. This completely updated fourth edition of Henry Kamen's authoritative, accessible survey of Spanish politics and civilisation in the Golden Age of its world experience substantially expands the coverage of themes and takes account of the latest published research.

Between 1450 and 1750 Europe underwent tremendous political, religious and cultural change - change which laid the foundations for the Europe we know today. Henry Kamen has compiled an accessible biographical guide to Europe in this most exciting of periods - the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, the time of da Vinci and Erasmus, Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell.
In over a thousand entries, which cover the whole of Europe and include politics, culture, religion and science, Professor Kamen and his international contributors, all experts in their field, shed new light on the key players in this extraordinarily rich and formative period of history.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203402332

Between 1450 and 1750 Europe underwent tremendous political, religious and cultural change - change which laid the foundations for the Europe we know today. Henry Kamen has compiled an accessible biographical guide to Europe in this most exciting of periods - the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, the time of da Vinci and Erasmus, Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell.
In over a thousand entries, which cover the whole of Europe and include politics, culture, religion and science, Professor Kamen and his international contributors, all experts in their field, shed new light on the key players in this extraordinarily rich and formative period of history.

A new edition of a seminal work-one that explores crucial changes within Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century The early modern period was one of profound change in Europe. It was witness to the development of science, religious reformation, and the birth of the nation state. As Europeans explored the world-looking to Asia and the Americas for new peoples and lands-their societies grew and adapted. Eminent historian Henry Kamen explores in depth the issues that most affected those living in early modern Europe-from leisure, work, and migration to religion, gender, and discipline-and the way in which population change impacted the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and the poor. The third edition of this pioneering study includes new and updated material on gender, religion, and population movement. Richly illustrated, this is essential reading for all those interested in early modern European society.

In this completely updated edition of Henry Kamen's classic survey of the Spanish Inquisition, the author incorporates the latest research in multiple languages to offer a new-and thought-provoking-view of this fascinating period. Kamen sets the notorious Christian tribunal into the broader context of Islamic and Jewish culture in the Mediterranean, reassesses its consequences for Jewish culture, measures its impact on Spain's intellectual life, and firmly rebuts a variety of myths and exaggerations that have distorted understandings of the Inquisition. He concludes with disturbing reflections on the impact of state security organizations in our own time.

An acclaimed historian of Europe explores one of the world’s most iconic buildings and the monarch who created it Few buildings have played so central a role in Spain’s history as the monastery-palace of San Lorenzo del Escorial. Colossal in size and imposing—even forbidding—in appearance, the Escorial has invited and defied description for four centuries. Part palace, part monastery, part mausoleum, it has also served as a shrine, a school, a repository for thousands of relics, and one of the greatest libraries of its time. Constructed over the course of more than twenty years, the Escorial challenged and provoked, becoming for some a symbol of superstition and oppression, for others a “wonder of the world.� Now a World Heritage Site, it is visited by thousands of travelers every year. In this intriguing study, Henry Kamen looks at the circumstances that brought the young Philip II to commission construction of the Escorial in 1563. He explores Philip’s motivation, the influence of his travels, the meaning of the design, and its place in Spanish culture. It represents a highly engaging narrative of the high point of Spanish imperial dominance, in which contemporary preoccupations with art, religion, and power are analyzed in the context of this remarkable building.

"A historian's biography of Philip II as Renaissance prince, refuting the Elizabethan propaganda picture of the spider of the Escorial."-New York Times Book Review (And Bear in Mind) "In humanizing a man too often viewed as a cardboard tyrant, Kamen has made a valuable contribution to European historiography."-Booklist Philip II of Spain-ruler of the most extensive empire the world had ever known-has been viewed in a harsh and negative light since his death in 1598. Identified with repression, bigotry, and fanaticism by his enemies, he has been judged more by the political events of his reign than by his person. This book, published four hundred years after Philip's death, is the first full-scale biography of the king. Placing him within the social, cultural, religious, and regional context of his times, it presents a startling new picture of his character and reign. Drawing on Philip's unpublished correspondence and on many other archival sources, Henry Kamen reveals much about Philip the youth, the man, the husband, the father, the frequently troubled Christian, and the king. Kamen finds that Philip was a cosmopolitan prince whose extensive experience of northern Europe broadened his cultural imagination and tastes, whose staunchly conservative ideas were far from being illiberal and fanatical, whose religious attitudes led him to accept a practical coexistence with Protestants and Jews, and whose support for Las Casas and other defenders of the Indians in America helped determine government policy. Shedding completely new light on most aspects of Philip's private life and, in consequence, on his public actions, the book is the definitive portrayal of Philip II.

In sixteenth-century Europe, culture and religious belief were so enmeshed that they informed and underpinned every act, however mundane, of every ordinary man or woman. But while the Reformation is acknowledged to have brought revolutionary change to Western society, the people of Catholic Europe have usually been regarded as little affected. Spain, in particular, is supposed to have escaped the winds of change entirely. Now, by considering the life of one small, but lively and distinctive, rural community - the Catalan village of Mediona - and the broader Mediterranean society of which it was part, Henry Kamen shows that, in fact, the Counter Reformation led to powerful changes in the daily life, belief and culture of the common people. Drawing exclusively on unpublished documents and on the wealth of books published during the period, the author looks at the popular culture of Catalan Spain, at the changes wrought by the Counter Reformation, at administrative reforms, the place of the community in religious belief, attempts to change popular festivities and celebrations, the far-reaching innovations in marriage and sexuality, the role of the Inquisition and of the Jesuits, the problem of witchcraft, and the impact of new ideas - introduced from abroad - on local language and the printed word. This pioneering study, the first of its kind on any Catholic society of the pre-industrial period, offers important new perspectives on the basis of the evidence for Catalonia, Spain's most vital and individual province. Kamen's Catalonia was a traditional society in which official dogma and morality played little part in everyday life, in which church marriage and the concept of Purgatory were little known, a society where control by the Inquisition was scorned, and extensive freedom of the press survived. By contemplating popular religion and culture from the bottom rather than the top, Henry Kamen offers new insights into an epoch normally studied and assessed only in the light of great political events, and presents a wholly original vision of culture and society in Golden Age Spain. 'Kamen's book may well come to be regarded as one of the top dozen or so works to have been written by a modern British historian in the field of Spanish history.' A. G. Dickens, University of London 'A detailed and compelling book of great originality, written by someone with an obvious passion for the culture he is studying. No reader could fail to be affected by Kamen's enthusiasm.' Anthony Pagden, King's College, Cambridge Henry Kamen is a distinguished historian and author, numbering among his books 'Imagining Spain: Historical Myth & National Identity', 'The Spanish Inqusition: A Historical Revision', and 'Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice'.

A provocative, brilliant, and groundbreaking historical reconsideration of the roots of Spanish culture.

We all carry in our heads a seductive picture of what Spain stands for: its music, painting, buildings, and history. But much of what we think of as Spanish culture is, in fact, the invention of a very specific group: the Spanish in exile.

Historian Henry Kamen creates a vivid portrait of a dysfunctional, violent country that, since the destruction of the last Muslim territories in Granada in 1492, has expelled wave after wave of its citizens in a brutal attempt to create religious and social conformity. Muslims, Jews, Protestants, liberals, Socialists, and Communists were all driven abroad at different times, and Spain's enormous contribution to European culture is largely a result of these rejected peoples--their creative response both to having no home and to the shock of encountering new worlds. A landmark work, "The Disinherited" describes with illuminating sympathy the travails of these unwanted societies and the enduring "virtual" culture they imagined often thousands of miles from their lost home.

This book, by the eminent historian Henry Kamen, is a unique analysis of the myths that Spaniards have held, and continue to hold, about themselves and about their collective past. Kamen discusses how perceptions of key aspects of early modern Spain, such as the monarchy, the empire and the Inquisition, were influenced by ideologies that continue to play a role in the formation of contemporary Spanish attitudes. Anxious to create a national identity, influential politicians and historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries sought the roots of that identity - an allegedly powerful, united and Catholic nation - in a fictitious image of what Spain was during the sixteenth century. Kamen holds up this imagined Spain to historical light and also examines the persistent obsession with the notion of national decline. Analysing the historical basis of attempts to create a convincing nationalist ideology, Kamen speaks to issues that remain at the heart of Spanish politics and public controversy today.Henry Kamen, a well-known authority on Spanish and European history, has written numerous books, including 'The Phoenix and the Flame' (1993), 'Philip of Spain' (1997), 'The Spanish Inquisition' (1999), 'Philip V' (2001), and 'The Duke of Alba' (2004), all published by Yale University Press.

Philip V, who reluctantly assumed the Spanish throne in 1700, was the first of the Bourbon dynasty which continues to rule Spain today. His 46-year reign, briefly curtailed in 1724 when he abdicated in favour of his short-lived son, Louis I, was one of the most important in the country's history. This highly readable account is the first biography of Philip V in English. Previous writing on Philip has been largely negative, dismissing him as comic, stupid and indolent. Henry Kamen demonstrates here, however, that the king initiated significant developments in politics, imperial policy, finance, government and military affairs that laid the basis of the modern Spanish state. Philip also encouraged literature, the creative arts and music in ways that brought Spanish culture closer in touch with the rest of Europe, and he dealt authoritatively with issues concerning the autonomy of the provinces of Spain and the role of the monarchy itself. Drawing on contemporary opinion and fresh archival sources, Kamen discusses Philip's character, decisions and policies.He offers a new assessment of the king's illness (which led earlier historians to view Philip as mad) and re-evaluates the role of his two wives. Kamen's account of Philip as king also provides an essential introduction to the study of early eighteenth-century Spain and the Bourbon monarchy. Henry Kamen is Professor of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Barcelona. He has held posts at several universities in Britain and the United States, most recently as visiting professor at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books on European and Spanish history, including 'Philip of Spain', 'The Spanish Inquisition', and 'The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and the Counter Reformation', all published by Yale University Press.