How the Spanish Empire Was Built: A 400-Year History

A richly researched account of the clever, industrious and deeply practical men who followed in the footsteps, often literally, of Columbus, Cortés, Pizarro, Núnez de Balboa and others.` – Wall Street Journal`Extraordinarily learned, and gilded with linguistic flourishes.` - Literary Review`In an age obsessed with global supply chains, instant communications, and global epidemics, there is much to be learned from predecessors who first encircled the world, for better or worse.` - Kris Lane, author of Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the WorldSixteenth-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.