How the Spanish Empire Was Built

by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Manuel Lucena Giraldo

2024 · Reaktion Books

“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 Journal The untold story of the engineering behind the empire, showing how imperial Spain built upon existing infrastructure and hierarchies of the Inca, Aztec, and more, to further its growth. Sixteenth-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 Fernández-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.

The Spanish Second Republic Revisited

by Manuel Álvarez Tardío, Fernando Reguillo

2013 · Liverpool University Press

The Spanish Civil War is one of the most studied events in modern European history. This book analyses the main obstacles to the consolidation of democracy in Spain and debates the principal stereotypes of the traditional historiography of both left and right.

Spanish Warships in the Age of Sail, 1700–1860

by Rif Winfield, John Tredrea, Enrique García-Torralba Pérez, Manuel Blasco Felip

2023 · Seaforth Publishing

"A beautiful work . . . certain to become the standard work in English on the Spanish sailing navy." —Seaways' Ships in Scale This book is the latest contribution to a unique series in a common format documenting in great detail the warships of the major naval powers during the age of sail. To date, four volumes have covered the British Navy, two have been devoted to the French Navy and one each to the Dutch and Russian Navies. This volume on the Spanish Navy, for much of its history the third largest in the world, fills the final gap in the ranks of the major maritime powers. This book is the first comprehensive listing of these ships in English and covers the development of all the naval vessels owned or deployed by Spain during the period of the Bourbon monarchy from 1700 to 1860 (including the period of French control during the Napoleonic Wars), but it also sets the scene for that period by summarizing the origins of Spanish naval development under the preceding Habsburg regime. As with previous volumes in the series, the main chapters list all the naval vessels from 1700 onwards (including those 16th-century ships which survived into the new regime in 1700) by type, with the first chapters listing the ships of the line (navíos in Spanish terminology) and frigates in descending order of firepower, and subsequent chapters covering minor and ancillary vessels. Where available, a brief service history of each individual ship is given. Its publication is of the utmost importance to every naval historian and general reader interested in the navies of the sailing era.