Spanish Seaborne Empire

Front Cover
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Sep 5, 2012 - History - 416 pages
The Spanish empire in America was the first of the great seaborne empires of western Europe; it was for long the richest and the most formidable, the focus of envy, fear, and hatred. Its haphazard beginning dates from 1492; it was to last more than three hundred years before breaking up in the early nineteenth century in civil wars between rival generals and "liberators."

Parry presents a broad picture of the conquests of Cortès and Pizarro and of the economic and social consequences in Spain of the effort to maintain control of vast holdings. He probes the complex administration of the empire, its economy, social structure, the influence of the Church, the destruction of the Indian cultures and the effect of their decline on Spanish policy. As we approach the quincentenary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, Parry provides the historical basis for a new consideration of the former Spanish colonies of Latin America and the transformation of pre-Columbian cultures to colonial states.
 

Contents

Cover
Introduction byJ H Plumb
THEESTABLISHMENT OF EMPIRE
The conquerors
Rights and duties
The spreading of the Faith
The ordering of society
Economic dependence
Peril by
Decline andrecovery 15 Caribbean conflicts
Spaniards and Americans
The Creole revolt
CONCLUSION The aftermath ofempire
About the Author
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