Golden Age

Product Description

Moving between Spanish conquest abroad & the court of the astute Charles V Hugh Thomas The Golden Age: The Spanish Empire of Charles V" is the second volume in a planned trilogy on the Spanish Empire. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in South America in the sixteenth century they swept across the continent in a blaze of imperial expansion & brutal savagery. Beginning with the return of the remnants of Magellans circumnavigation in 1522 & ending with Charles death in 1558 Hugh Thomas masterful work brilliantly brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods of the Renaissance revealing how the Spaniards were able to conquer Guatemala Yucatan Columbia Venezuela Peru & Chile; how the audacious conquistador Francisco de Orellana sailed down the Amazon why Cabeza de Vaca walked from Florida to Mexico & what drove Hernando de Soto to pursue worldly riches in Florida Mississippi & Georgia. While adventurers & explorers like Cortes & Pizarro build entire cities & amassed vast wealth from the treasures of the land they also killed thousands & left the indelible mark of Spains language & religion for centuries to come. " Thomas tells the story of missionary zeal & military plunder with a zest worthy of a swashbuckling historical novelist". (" The Times"). "A riveting story of adventure & cruelty.. .a considerable scholarly accomplishment". (Ben Wilson " Daily Telegraph"). " This monumental history is an extraordinary achievement...A beguilingly-written account of a fascinating subject". (Alexander Samson " The Times Higher Education"). Supplement Hugh Thomas is the author of among other books " The Spanish Civil War" (1962) which won the Somerset Maugham Award " Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom" (1971) " An Unfinished History of the World" (1979) & the first volume of his " Spanish Empire trilogy Rivers of Gold" (2003)."