Magnificent joint venture

One might think that Henry Kamen, having written books on Spain in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, on the Inquisition, on Philip II and on the War of the Spanish Succession, had just about done, not to say saturated, the period. But no – he has apparently not covered the Spanish empire to his satisfaction; and so we have the present volume, spanning the years 1492-1763. There is no doubting Kamen’s scholarship, much of it drawn from Spanish texts, as he moves magisterially over the centuries: from his setting of the 16th-century European scene under Charles V, to the conquests of the New World, to the sea-change in Spain’s fortunes following the demise of the childless ‘human wreck’, Charles II, and the Habsburg dynasty. Supported by a wealth, at times almost a surfeit, of facts and statistics, Kamen’s theme is intriguing while not altogether surprising: that Spain’s status as a world power owed more to other countries and peoples than to the men of Castile.