Global Servants of the Spanish King: Mobility and Cosmopolitanism in the Early Modern Spanish Empire

From 1580 to 1700, low-ranking Spanish imperial officials ceaselessly moved across the Spanish empire, and in the process forged a single coherent political unit out of multiple heterogeneous territories, creating the earliest global empire. Global Servants of the Spanish King follows officials as they itinerated between the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Africa, revealing how their myriad experiences of service to the king across a variety of locales impacted the governance of the empire, and...