World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global

World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire

Following Rivers of Gold and The Golden Empire and building on five centuries of scholarship, World Without End is the epic conclusion of an unprecedented three-volume history of the Spanish Empire from â€œone of the most productive and wide-ranging historians of modern timesâ€ (The New York Times Book Review).
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The legacy of imperial Spain was shaped by many hands. But the dramatic human story of the extraordinary projection of Spanish might in the second half of the sixteenth century has never been fully toldâ€”until now. In World Without End, Hugh Thomas chronicles the lives, loves, conflicts, and conquests of the complex men and women who carved up the Americas for the glory of Spain.
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Chief among them is the towering figure of King Philip II, the cultivated Spanish monarch whom a contemporary once called â€œthe arbiter of the world.â€ Cheerful and pious, he inherited vast authority from his father, Emperor Charles V, but nevertheless felt himself unworthy to wield it. His forty-two-year reign changed the face of the globe forever. Alongside Philip we find the entitled descendants of New Spainâ€™s original explorersâ€”men who, like their king, came into possession of land they never conquered and wielded supremacy they never sought. Here too are the Roman Catholic religious leaders of the Americas, whose internecine struggles created possibilities that the emerging Jesuit order was well-positioned to fill.
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With the sublime stories of arms and armadas, kings and conquistadors come tales of the ridiculous: the opulent parties of New Spainâ€™s wealthy hedonists and the unexpected movement to encourage Philip II to conquer China. Finally, Hugh Thomas unearths the first indictments of imperial Spainâ€™s labor rights abuses in the Americasâ€”and the early attempts by its more enlightened rulers and planters to address them.
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Written in the brisk, flowing narrative style that has come to define Hugh Thomasâ€™s work, the final volume of this acclaimed trilogy stands alone as a history of an empire making the transition from conquest to inheritanceâ€”a history that Thomas reveals through the fascinating lives of the people who made it.

Praise for World Without End
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â€œReaders will not find a more reliable guide to the maturing Spanish Empire. . . . World Without End reminds us that the far-flung Spanish Empire was the work of many minds and hands, and by the end their myriad stories carry a cumulative charge.â€â€”The New York Times Book Review

â€œA sweeping, encyclopedic history of the arrogance, ambition, and ideology that fueled the quest for empire.â€â€”Kirkus Reviews
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â€œLiterary power is a vital part of a great historianâ€™s armoury. As in his earlier books, Thomas demonstrates here that he has this in abundance.â€â€”Financial Times
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â€œA vivid climax to Hugh Thomasâ€™s three-volume history of imperial Spain.â€â€”The Telegraph
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â€œThomas clearly excels in the Spanish history of religion, politics, and culture, [and] successfully shows that Spainâ€™s global ambition knew no bounds.â€â€”Publishers Weekly

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-08-11
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-08-11
Format	Kindle eBook

World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire

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