World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire

The legacy of imperial Spain was shaped by many hands. Chief among them is the towering figure of King Philip II, the cultivated Spanish monarch whom a contemporary once called "the arbiter of the world." Cheerful and pious, he inherited vast authority from his father, but nevertheless felt himself unworthy to wield it. His forty-two-year reign changed the face of the globe forever. Alongside Philip we find the entitled descendants of New Spain's original explorers-men who, like their king,...