How the Spanish Empire Was Built
Sixteenth-century Spain was small, poor, disunited and sparsely populated. Yet the Spaniards and their allies built the largest empire the world had ever seen. How did they achieve this?
Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Manuel Lucena Giraldo argue that Spain’s engineers were critical to this venture. The Spanish invested in infrastructure to the advantage of local power brokers, enhancing the abilities of incumbent elites to grow wealthy on trade and widening the arc of Spanish influence.
Bringing to life stories of engineers, prospectors, soldiers and priests, the authors paint a vivid portrait of Spanish America in the age of conquest. This is a dazzling new history of the Spanish Empire, and a new understanding of empire itself, as a venture marked as much by collaboration as oppression.
Felipe Fernández-Armesto is William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. His work has appeared in 29 languages and has won, among other awards, the World History Association Book Prize, the John Carter Brown Medal, and Spain’s national prizes for geographical research and food writing. His books include Straits (2022) and Out of Our Minds (2019).
Manuel Lucena Giraldo (Author)
Manuel Lucena Giraldo is a Research Scientist at the Spanish National Research Council and Adjunct Professor at IE University and ESCP Business School Europe. His most recent book is Firsting in the Early-Modern Atlantic World (2020, ed. Lauren Beck).