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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good history with an important Caveat, September 17, 2004
The caveat is that the Spanish Empire was in many ways not Spain's. Empire reminds us that many of those working, and fighting, for Spain were non-Spaniards. This is repeated throughout the book, for the most part to good effect.
Empire is a truly academic work, in the sense that it presents us with the dark side of the Empire, without pretending that Spain of five centuries ago should be judged by modern standards. What Spain did wrong, and there is plenty, is presented as simple fact, and placed in the context of how human beings behaved in that time period.
The two minor flaws I see in the book are these: Empire reminds us, rightly, that many who worked for Spain were not Spaniards, however, too much can be made of this. The men involved thought they were working for the Spanish Empire, their successes were attributed to that Empire, and benefitted that Empire. Where Spain's soldiers were born is interesting, but not quite as important as the author believes. Still, he can be forgiven for over-emphasizing in this book something that is ignored in others.
The other flaw is a lack of consistency in applying this underlying principal to other countries in their dealings with Spain. When the Spanish Empire faces other powers, whether in the old world or the new, the troops of those powers are typically treated as homogenous masses. Surely, if Spain's men were not all Spanish, and that is important, then the makeup of the forces opposing Spain should also be investigated...
Still, the book is the very readable story of one of the greatest empires in european history. It deals with the worst aspects the Empire without either condoning them or descending into moralistic chest-thumping. If you're interested in the subject matter, you'll enjoy this book.
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66 of 86 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Historical revisionist non-sequiter, December 30, 2004
This is not Henry Kamen's book. Mr. Kamen did not finance the publishing of this book or it's marketing (this was performed by Harper Collins Publishers). He did not design the cover jacket or perform the actual printing, paper cutting or binding. Furthermore, Mr. Kamen did not create the computers and/or typewriters he used in 'writing' the 'manuscript'. In addition, he did not write any of the other books mentioned in the Bibliography and Notes. He did not locate, collect and catalog the source materials. And, of course, he had nothing to do with the actual events recorded in the 'book'. Therefore, to speak of this book as "Henry Kamen's" book is an act of arrogant and ignorant pride.
Now, if you can see through the inanity of the above, then you'll be able to grasp the failure of Henry Kamen's central thesis in "Empire." He tries to make the case that the Spanish Empire was neither Spanish nor an Empire (along the lines of Voltaire's quip about the Holy Roman Empire). The main premise in his argument is that since the Spanish Empire was not created entirely by Spaniards using only Spanish money and all Spanish technology (etc., etc.), that therefore it is more properly to be called a corporate empire, an international one, or whatever.
The short demolition of this thesis lies in my 1st paragraph. Mr. Kamen can claim this book as his own because he had the Vision for it and because it would not have existed without his effort. It may be that all the materials capable of producing the book "Empire" already existed and Mr. Kamen had nothing to do with them. But it does not follow that "Empire" would have come into being without the active input and motivation of Mr. Kamen. If he (or you) doubts it, just try to take away his royalty checks.
Likewise, the Spanish Empire did not come into being simply because Genoese bankers and adventurers had money to lend and time to kill. It did not happen because American Indians fought amongst themselves or because most of Western Europe was eager to see the liberation of the Maghreb. There are reasons why, in the 16th century, the French or Genoese, or German merchants did not create the first world-wide empire on five continents. Unfortunately, you'll not learn about them by reading this book.
There are several failures of logic that run throughout Mr. Kamen's argument. First is his complete failure to grasp the basics of economics. Throughout the book he makes continual snide remarks about how this or that technology or advance in information used by the Spaniards was nothing more than an input from some other country or culture. Now, the last time I checked, nothing in life is free. If the Spaniards were able to buy books from abroad instead of manufacturing them at home, or to use the military technology of rival countries, they were only able to do so because they had something of unique value to give in return. This is the basic economics of trade. So, what was it that the Spaniards had of unique value that helped them to acquire the things they did not have? Again, Mr. Kamen does not say. Perhaps it was the early political stability that Ferdinand helped to create? Mr. Kamen notes this but then does seem to think it amounts to much in the way of explaining Spain's success. Or perhaps it was their location, an attribute of happenstance, maybe, but valuable enough. Or was it the new-found energy, confidence and adventursomeness that characterized Spanish culture in the 16th Century? Mr. Kamen does the Spanish a disservice by papering over these kinds of valuables.
Then, of course, there are the hypocritical attacks on Westerners in general. Westerners (e.g. White European Christians) during the Early Modern Period are constantly denigrated for supposedly being oblivious to the cultures of other societies and of always trying to "go-it-alone" because of blind arrogance or racism, or something. But in "Empire", Mr. Kamen reverses the charges. Because the Spanish used their abilities at leading other peoples and their sound (and clever) diplomacy in creating their Empire, Mr. Kamen now says that THIS disqualifies them from any praise as well!! What's a poor Western White Boy to do?!?! When you do your own thing you're accused of obscurantism and arrogance; when you learn about other cultures and use their skills or even integrate with them, then you're just a weak cipher who can't do anything himself. Sheeeesh!!
Finally, the most basic failure of Mr. Kamen's thesis is an inability to prove that the Spanish were somehow unique in the way they formed their Empire. After Rome had conquered the Samnites and Etruscans closest to them, you could have easily said that it really wasn't a Roman Empire, but a Samnite and Magna Greacian Empire. Likewise with the Muslim Empire. Most of the warriors making up the Muslim armies in Africa and Persia and elsewhere where slaves of many different races. You could go on and on about any and all such political combinations. It would have been much more fruitful if Mr. Kamen had tried to give a good definition of why we name an Empire after a particular country or culture. Is it because of a common language? The location of the central city? The legal code (a la Napoleon's Empire, and even Rome's to some extant), or what? Unfortunately, Mr. Kamen seems bent on simply denigrating the Spanish to no observable purpose.
So the next time you get a bonus at work or a good grade on a test, just pick up Henry Kamen's "Empire" and prove to yourself that you had nothing to do with it after all!
P.S - one of my pet peeves is the use of quotations around words to deligitimize a concept by bypassing any argument. Kamen does this repeatedly in the book, placing the word empire in quotation marks whenever it refers to the Spanish Empire. Cheap shot and then some! For a good analysis of this technique by various hacks, see David Stove's essay "Neutralizing Success Words" in his collection "Scientific Irrationalism."
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35 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Empire: the Spanish Version, March 27, 2003
This review is from: Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763 (Hardcover)
To outsiders the history of Early Modern Spain appears as a story of decline. On the one hand Spain from 1492 onwards was one of the largest empires in history, ranging from Naples to Manilla, controlling much of Germany and Italy, as well as what is now Holland and Belgium. It was responsible for destroying two great urban civilizations, the Aztec and the Inca, and for shattering the culture and society of an entire hemisphere. Yet after the defeat of the Spanish Armada the history of the Empire appears to be a slow and agonizing decline, while Spain itself turned from being the feared master of Europe to a poor isolated periphery. It is the virtue of Henry Kamen's book that he shows this to be an illusion. Kamen is one of the leading historians of Spain and the last decade has been a prolific one for him, since he has also written an important study of the counter-reformation in Catalonia, biographies of Philip II and Philip V, as well as a revision of his book on the Spanish Inquisition. In Kamen's new book he shows that Spain was always a poor country on the periphery of Europe. How then did it dominate much of the world? The short answer is that it didn't really, and it had a lot of help to dominate what it did. People tend to think that the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella created a united Spain. Not true. What it did was create a system in which the various territories and regions that made up Spain were ruled by a common monarch. But each region, as well as much of the rest of the Spanish empire, had its own sets of privileges and local assemblies. No unified Spanish state existed in 1492 and would not for centuries to come. The result was that Spain had no coherent bureaucracy and could never have formed its vast armies on its own resources and populations. It relied heavily on foreign mercenaries. Belgians were crucial to the success at St. Quentin in the 1550s, the Italians for the victory at Lepanto in the 1570s. The Spaniards made up only a sixth of the soldiers ruling Italy in 1544 Italy. The Guarani Indians, under the Jesuit missions made famous in the rather inaccurate film "The Mission," aided the Spanish 50 times, and successfully fought off, at times, the British, the French, and the Portuguese. Indian allies were crucial to the conquest of the Americas, while the free blacks also played a vital role. Financiers from Italy and Belgium and elsewhere funded the Empire. Columbus was an Italian, with no Castillians on his first voyage, while Magellan was Portuguese. Spain could never have funded the armies to conquer the Americans. Instead it made offers that were taken up by ambitious freebooters. The power of the Spaniards was often weak. Officially, it had expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492. Officially, its armies fought to purge Europe of heretical Protestantism. Officially, it maintained a monopoly on all trade with the Americas. In fact many Jews stayed on in Spain for decades, in fact many of its polyglot empire were Protestant, in fact "unofficial" trade with foreign powers was always the norm and by the late 1600s they dominated the trade and kept the empire alive for its own purposes. Whether in New Mexico, or Peru or the Philippines, Catholicism made only limited and superficial progress, while the colony at Manilla survived only because of the sufferance of China and Japan. Kamen is not the most interesting writer, but there is much of interest for the reader to find. One could read this book as an example of early globalization. Yet one should not think that this was a benign and gloriously cosmpolitan process, as Niall Ferguson argues in his upcoming book on the British Empire. While books flooded into Spain, the Spanish could not bother to translate English or French works. Whether in Holland or in England or in France, Spanish officials could not be bothered to learn the local language, even including the ambassadors. Philip II made in his Escorial the finest European collection of Arab manuscripts, which the Castillians were unable to use or appreciate because virtually none of them bothered to learn Arabic. Although Castillians engaged in glorious feats of exploration they failed to create a real travel literature. They did not appreciate the value of tomatoes and beans for decades (though not from a shortage of hungry Spaniards). One Spanish botanist actually did some major work and wrote an account in the 1570s. There it remained lost in the Escorial until 1651 when some Italian intellectuals thought of the bright idea of publishing it. Although many Spaniards were horrified at the Destruction of the Indies and the brutal savagery against Holland, "Official" Castillian culture was dangerously vain and uncurious. Throughout the book I thought Kamen made too much of the independence of the Amerindians. After all when Latin America won independence Spanish was the official language and any indigenista tendencies took second place to Catholic or Secular ideologies. But ultimately this is not a complacent book. Kamen not only reminds us that Pizarro exorted 20 tons of silver and gold from Athalupa. He also reminds us that these 20 tons consisted of priceless sculptures and art which Pizarro thoughtlessly melted down to turn into ignots. (He also reminds us that most Spanish intellectuals condemned Pizarro's execution of Athalupa as murder.) The Slave Trade, the extinction of the native population of the Carribean, the horrors of the 30 years war and the war of Dutch Independence; how many people know that in 1603 23,000 Chinese were slaughtered in Manilla by Imperial forces? As Kamen concludes, for all the "glory" the Empire brought to some, "for very many others it was one of almost unrelieved desolation."
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