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Books

The king who blamed everything that went wrong on God

A review of Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II, by Geoffrey Parker. This is a masterpiece of historical biography

15 November 2014

9:00 AM

15 November 2014

9:00 AM

Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II Geoffrey Parker

Yale University Press, pp.356, £25, ISBN: 9780300196535

Geoffrey Parker is a product of Nottingham and Christ’s College Cambridge, and I think was once a pupil of the unforgettable Jack Plumb. He went to Urbana-Champaign (Illinois) in 1986, Yale in 1995 and since 1997 has been at Ohio State University. Against that improbable background he established himself years ago as the world’s outstanding historian of Philip II, his court, his problems and tragedies, having devoted much attention to the Dutch revolt.

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Hugh Thomas is the author of The Golden Age: The Spanish Empire of Charles V.

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