Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to MagellanRandom House Publishing Group, 20/11/2013 - 720 من الصفحات From one of the greatest historians of the Spanish world, here is a fresh and fascinating account of Spain’s early conquests in the Americas. Hugh Thomas’s magisterial narrative of Spain in the New World has all the characteristics of great historical literature: amazing discoveries, ambition, greed, religious fanaticism, court intrigue, and a battle for the soul of humankind. Hugh Thomas shows Spain at the dawn of the sixteenth century as a world power on the brink of greatness. Her monarchs, Fernando and Isabel, had retaken Granada from Islam, thereby completing restoration of the entire Iberian peninsula to Catholic rule. Flush with success, they agreed to sponsor an obscure Genoese sailor’s plan to sail west to the Indies, where, legend purported, gold and spices flowed as if they were rivers. For Spain and for the world, this decision to send Christopher Columbus west was epochal—the dividing line between the medieval and the modern. Spain’s colonial adventures began inauspiciously: Columbus’s meagerly funded expedition cost less than a Spanish princess’s recent wedding. In spite of its small scale, it was a mission of astounding scope: to claim for Spain all the wealth of the Indies. The gold alone, thought Columbus, would fund a grand Crusade to reunite Christendom with its holy city, Jerusalem. The lofty aspirations of the first explorers died hard, as the pursuit of wealth and glory competed with the pursuit of pious impulses. The adventurers from Spain were also, of course, curious about geographical mysteries, and they had a remarkable loyalty to their country. But rather than bridging earth and heaven, Spain’s many conquests bore a bitter fruit. In their search for gold, Spaniards enslaved “Indians” from the Bahamas and the South American mainland. The eloquent protests of Bartolomé de las Casas, here much discussed, began almost immediately. Columbus and other Spanish explorers—Cortés, Ponce de León, and Magellan among them—created an empire for Spain of unsurpassed size and scope. But the door was soon open for other powers, enemies of Spain, to stake their claims. Great men and women dominate these pages: cardinals and bishops, priors and sailors, landowners and warriors, princes and priests, noblemen and their determined wives. Rivers of Gold is a great story brilliantly told. More significant, it is an engrossing history with many profound—often disturbing—echoes in the present. |
من داخل الكتاب
النتائج 1-5 من 76
الصفحة xix
... Italians and Portuguese played a part in the story). Each of the chapters in Rivers of Gold concerns itself with epoch-making events: the fall of Granada, the establishment of a united Spain, the expulsion of the Spanish lews ...
... Italians and Portuguese played a part in the story). Each of the chapters in Rivers of Gold concerns itself with epoch-making events: the fall of Granada, the establishment of a united Spain, the expulsion of the Spanish lews ...
الصفحة 5
... Italy but usually deriving from the mulberries of the valley of the Alpujarras to the south, beyond the Sierra Nevada, and sold in many colors in the market of In alcaiceria. Higher up, there was the Moorish kings' lovely, rambling ...
... Italy but usually deriving from the mulberries of the valley of the Alpujarras to the south, beyond the Sierra Nevada, and sold in many colors in the market of In alcaiceria. Higher up, there was the Moorish kings' lovely, rambling ...
الصفحة 8
... Italy, and who might not remain there after the military defeat of the last Nasrids. The Genoese were, of course, Christian, but their entrepreneurs wore that faith lightly. Fernando and Isabel were certainly anxious to please the Pope ...
... Italy, and who might not remain there after the military defeat of the last Nasrids. The Genoese were, of course, Christian, but their entrepreneurs wore that faith lightly. Fernando and Isabel were certainly anxious to please the Pope ...
الصفحة 17
... Italy, had met the brightest and best of his generation. One historian hails him as the "nearest to a full Italian humanist that Spain produced" at that time.-' The distinction of Isabel's advisers was an explanation for her success as ...
... Italy, had met the brightest and best of his generation. One historian hails him as the "nearest to a full Italian humanist that Spain produced" at that time.-' The distinction of Isabel's advisers was an explanation for her success as ...
الصفحة 18
... Italy, though his long absences from Spain had weakened his standing there.28 At first sight the kingdom of Aragon thus seemed more dynamic as well as more diverse than Castile. But Cataluna was in economic decline. The prosperous days ...
... Italy, though his long absences from Spain had weakened his standing there.28 At first sight the kingdom of Aragon thus seemed more dynamic as well as more diverse than Castile. But Cataluna was in economic decline. The prosperous days ...
المحتوى
11 | |
27 | |
Book | 45 |
5 For Gods sake tell me what song you are singing | 70 |
A white stretch of land | 85 |
7 Tears in the royal eyes | 99 |
They love their neighbors as themselves | 108 |
9 We concede the islands and lands discovered by you | 116 |
Book Six CISNEROS | 354 |
King Fernando He is dead | 357 |
Go back and see what is happening | 375 |
Book Seven CHARLES KING AND EMPEROR | 394 |
The best place in the world for blacks | 397 |
It is clear as day | 414 |
I was moved to act by a natural compassion | 424 |
For empire conies from God alone | 435 |
As if in their own country | 126 |
4 To course oer better waters 183 | 182 |
15 The greatest good that we can wish for | 201 |
Teach them and indoctrinate them with good customs | 218 |
17 Children must constantly obey their parents | 239 |
You ought to send one hundred black slaves | 251 |
And they leapt onto the land | 260 |
Call this other place Amerige | 269 |
Book Four DIEGO COLON | 285 |
A voice trying in the wilderness | 287 |
Infidels may justly defend themselves | 296 |
Without partiality love or hatred | 311 |
Book Five BALBOA AND PEDRAR1AS | 324 |
They took possession of all that sea 327 | 325 |
A man very advanced in excess | 341 |
The new golden land | 444 |
Book Eight NEW SPAIN | 458 |
I am to pass away like a faded flower | 461 |
This land is the richest in the world | 474 |
O our lord thou has suffered | 479 |
Go with good fortune | 495 |
The new emperor 513 | 512 |
From the poplars I come mama | 519 |
Family Trees | 539 |
The Costs of Becoming Emperor 1519 | 545 |
Glossary | 551 |
Notes | 575 |
Index | 661 |
طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات
Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire <span dir=ltr>Hugh Thomas</span> لا تتوفر معاينة - 2013 |
عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة
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