The story of Spain's rise to greatness from its humble beginnings as one of the poorest and most marginal of European countries is a remarkable and dramatic one

It used to be said that the sun never set on the empire of the King of Spain. It was therefore appropriate that Emperor Charles V should have commissioned from

When J. H. Elliott published Spain and Its World, 1500?1700 some twenty years ago, one of many enthusiasts declared, ?For anyone interested in the history of em

This epic history compares the empires built by Spain and Britain in the Americas, from Columbus's arrival in the New World to the end of Spanish colonial rule

Impoverished and exhausted after fifty years of incessant warfare, the great Spanish Empire at the turn of the sixteenth century negotiated treaties with its th