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inulro37. World Without End - the Global Empire of Philip II by Hugh Thomas
Oh dear, I can't believe I read the whole thing.
I have fond memories of his earlier works, The Slave Trade and The Conquest of Mexico. The first volume of this series, Rivers of Gold, is dense but informative. Volume two was pretty painful, as was this (but was shorter). It works neither as narrative nor analysis. It doesn't answer basic questions that a novice like me to, say, the exploration of Paraguay, has, nor is there any meaningful consideration of much of anything. I could rant for ages but the basic take-home is just don't.
I'm still looking for a decent account of the Spanish in South America and I'm beginning to wonder if the answer is become a lot more fluent in Spanish. There's a lot of material on Mexico and the Inca, but not a lot about the more obscure parts that I'm interested in.
Oh, and the maps are crap and relegated to the back so you can imagine how I feel about that.
Oh dear, I can't believe I read the whole thing.
I have fond memories of his earlier works, The Slave Trade and The Conquest of Mexico. The first volume of this series, Rivers of Gold, is dense but informative. Volume two was pretty painful, as was this (but was shorter). It works neither as narrative nor analysis. It doesn't answer basic questions that a novice like me to, say, the exploration of Paraguay, has, nor is there any meaningful consideration of much of anything. I could rant for ages but the basic take-home is just don't.
I'm still looking for a decent account of the Spanish in South America and I'm beginning to wonder if the answer is become a lot more fluent in Spanish. There's a lot of material on Mexico and the Inca, but not a lot about the more obscure parts that I'm interested in.
Oh, and the maps are crap and relegated to the back so you can imagine how I feel about that.
