The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America

Hugh Thomas

Random House, 2010 - History - 646 pages

From a master chronicler of Spanish history comes a magnificent work about the pivotal years from 1522 to 1566, when Spain was the greatest European power. Hugh Thomas has written a rich and riveting narrative of exploration, progress, and plunder. At its center is the unforgettable ruler who fought the French and expanded the Spanish empire, and the bold conquistadors who were his agents. Thomas brings to life King Charles V—first as a gangly and easygoing youth, then as a liberal statesman who exceeded all his predecessors in his ambitions for conquest (while making sure to maintain the humanity of his new subjects in the Americas), and finally as a besieged Catholic leader obsessed with Protestant heresy and interested only in profiting from those he presided over.

The Golden Empirealso presents the legendary men whom King Charles V sent on perilous and unprecedented expeditions: Hernán Cortés, who ruled the “New Spain” of Mexico as an absolute monarch—and whose rebuilding of its capital, Tenochtitlan, was Spain’s greatest achievement in the sixteenth century; Francisco Pizarro, who set out with fewer than two hundred men for Peru, infamously executed the last independent Inca ruler, Atahualpa, and was finally murdered amid intrigue; and Hernando de Soto, whose glittering journey to settle land between Rio de la Palmas in Mexico and the southernmost keys of Florida ended in disappointment and death. Hugh Thomas reveals as never before their torturous journeys through jungles, their brutal sea voyages amid appalling storms and pirate attacks, and how a cash-hungry Charles backed them with loans—and bribes—obtained from his German banking friends.

A sweeping, compulsively readable saga of kings and conquests, armies and armadas, dominance and power,The Golden Empireis a crowning achievement of the Spanish world’s foremost historian.

Contents

• Antonio de Mendoza Museo Nacional de Historia Mexico photograph: 7
• Valladolid 1522: 15
• Charles King and Emperor: 25
• Christianity and the New World: 39
• Charles at Valladolid 15221523: 48
• Cortés in Power 15211524: 63
• From Valladolid to the Fall of Rome 1527: 83
• The Alvarados and Guatemala: 96
• Charles and His Empire: 107
• Pedrarias Panama and Peru Guzmán in New Spain: 117
• Charles Cortés Pizarro: 135
• The Welsers: 148
• Narváez and Cabeza de Vaca: 157
• Ordaz on the Orinoco Heredia at Cartagena: 164
• Cortés and the Audiencia in New Spain 172 2: 172
• Montejo in Yucatán: 178
• To Pass the Sandbar: 199
• Book II: 211
• Birú: 213
• Pizarros Preparations: 221
• Cajamarca: 233
• The End of Atahualpa: 239
• News of Peru: 248
• The Battle for Cuzco: 262
• Almagro: 274
• Pizarros Triumph and Tragedy: 279
• Vaca de Castro in Peru: 285
• Gonzalo Pizarro and Orellana Seek Cinnamon and Find the Amazon: 290
• Orellana and New Andalusia: 303
• The Defeat of the Viceroy: 311
• Gonzalo and La Gasca: 318
• Valdivia and Chile: 331
• Valdivias Consummation: 342
• Book III: 355
• Carolus Africanus: 357
• The Indies Finance Europe: 366
• Federmann and Jiménez de Quesada: 376
• The Return of Cabeza de Vaca: 391
• Soto in North America: 395
• The Magic Lure of the New World: 408
• Pedro de Mendoza and Cabeza de Vaca: 416
• New Spain with Antonio de Mendoza: 424
• Coronado and the Seven Magic Cities of Cibola: 442
• Montejo and Alvarado in Yucatán and Guatemala: 449
• Book IV: 461
• Las Casas Pope Paul and the Indian Soul: 463
• Controversy at Valladolid: 478
• Las Casas and Sepúlveda: 490
• The Knight of the Black Eagle: 499
• The Emperor at Bay: 510
• 10a Francisco Pizarro and his mistress Inés on the wall of the Palace of: 571

About the author

Hugh Thomas is the author of numerous histories, including Rivers of Gold, a New York Times Notable Book and one of the Los Angeles Times's Best Books of the Year; The Spanish Civil War, for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award; and An Unfinished History of the World, for which he won the Arts Council Prize for History. Made a lord in 1981, Lord Thomas was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America
• Author: Hugh Thomas
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Random House, 2010
• ISBN: 1400061253, 9781400061259
• Length: 646 pages
• Subjects: History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies); History / Europe / Spain & Portugal; History / Latin America / South America