Europe and the Decline of Spain: A Study of the Spanish System, 1580-1720

First published in 1981, Europe and the Decline of Spain deals with the slow ebbing of Spanish power, its ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ during the ‘long seventeenth century’ of pre-industrial Europe. The author looks at the fortunes of Spanish European hegemony from its apogee late in the reign of Philip II to its ultimate failure and dissolution about a century later.

The author examines the dynamic spiritual and material resources of Spain as a politico-military system of continenta...