Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to MagellanRandom House Publishing Group, 20þ/11þ/2013 - 720 ãä ÇáÕÝÍÇÊ 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. |
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ÇáÕÝÍÉ xxi
... once of Random House, New York, for his meticulous work on an early version of the book, and his successor, David Ebershoff, for his support. My wife, Vanessa, kindly read the book in manuscript and also in proof. My dear friend Anthony ...
... once of Random House, New York, for his meticulous work on an early version of the book, and his successor, David Ebershoff, for his support. My wife, Vanessa, kindly read the book in manuscript and also in proof. My dear friend Anthony ...
ÇáÕÝÍÉ 4
... once new and immortal. Over the entrance to the church a lance has been sculpted, accompanying the words "/Ave Marin!" to recall a Christian knight, Hernan Perez de Pulgar, "he of the doughty deeds,"5 who, one night the previous winter ...
... once new and immortal. Over the entrance to the church a lance has been sculpted, accompanying the words "/Ave Marin!" to recall a Christian knight, Hernan Perez de Pulgar, "he of the doughty deeds,"5 who, one night the previous winter ...
ÇáÕÝÍÉ 5
... once had lived there had been deported, being perceived by the rulers as a potential military threat. There were some lews in Granada, but their customs, like their food and official language, were largely Muslim. They fitted better ...
... once had lived there had been deported, being perceived by the rulers as a potential military threat. There were some lews in Granada, but their customs, like their food and official language, were largely Muslim. They fitted better ...
ÇáÕÝÍÉ 6
... once stretched to the Pyrenees and beyond, and had included such northern Spanish lands as Galicia and, for a time, Asturias. Once the Muslim civilization in Spain had been rich, sophisticated, and scholarly, and Castilians, like other ...
... once stretched to the Pyrenees and beyond, and had included such northern Spanish lands as Galicia and, for a time, Asturias. Once the Muslim civilization in Spain had been rich, sophisticated, and scholarly, and Castilians, like other ...
ÇáÕÝÍÉ 7
... once been a prisoner of the Christians, and though he had broken the terms of his family's agreement with the Spaniards at least once, his loyalty to his own people was now questionable. Similar divisions within Granada had played a ...
... once been a prisoner of the Christians, and though he had broken the terms of his family's agreement with the Spaniards at least once, his loyalty to his own people was now questionable. Similar divisions within Granada had played a ...
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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 |
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