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Books

In the empire stakes, the Anglo-Saxons were for long Spain’s inferiors

A review of World Without End: The Global Empire of Philip II, by Hugh Thomas. This history of the Spanish Empire seems more interested in the conquerors than the conquered but still makes its argument well

19 July 2014

9:00 AM

19 July 2014

9:00 AM

World Without End: The Global Empire of Philip II Hugh Thomas

Allen Lane/Penguin Books, pp.464, £30, ISBN: 9781846140839

‘Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma and who strangled Atahualpa.’ Macaulay, anticipating Gove, was complaining that the schoolboys by contrast did not get enough about Clive and the British conquest of India. Hugh Thomas, in this and in the two previous volumes of his trilogy on the Spanish empire, presumes that we have all forgotten about Montezuma and Atahualpa, and argues that we do not appreciate Spain’s imperial achievements.

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