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Philip of Spain, by Henry Kamen
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This book, published four hundred years after Philip's death, is the first full-scale biography of the king. Placing him within the social, cultural, religious and regional context of his times, it presents a startling new picture of his character and reign. Drawing on Philip's unpublished correspondence and on many other archival sources, Henry Kamen reveals much about Philip the youth, the man, the husband, the father, the frequently troubled Christian and the king. Kamen finds that Philip was a cosmopolitan prince whose extensive experience of northern Europe broadened his cultural imagination and tastes, whose staunchly conservative ideas were far from being illiberal and fanatical, whose religious attitudes led him to accept a practical coexistence with Protestants and Jews, and whose support for Las Casas and other defenders of the Indians in America helped determine government policy. Shedding completely new light on most aspects of Philip's private life and, in consequence, on his public actions, this book is the definitive portrayal of Philip II.
- Sales Rank: #986329 in Books
- Published on: 1999-02-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.10" h x 1.19" w x 6.23" l, 1.47 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 400 pages
From Library Journal
The depth of Kamen's research on his subject, who ruled Spain from 1527 to 1598, could overwhelm some readers, as his previous works have done (e.g., The Phoenix and the Flame, Yale Univ., 1993). In this first in-depth biography of Philip II, Kamen's understanding of and acquaintance with the sources is masterly. The author often disagrees with much of the classic beliefs about Philip's personality; for example, his supposed solemnity and predilection for black (Kamen notes that the king was rarely out of mourning). However, regarding Philip's reputed cruelty, Kamen says he was hard but "restrained the severity of his officials on numberless occasions," yet he fails to enumerate these occasions. While Philip dominated Spanish politics and culture for more than half a century, Kamen devotes only a few tantalizing pages to the effects of that reign on subsequent events. The audience deserves more of Kamen's insights toward this end. Still, this is a work of marvelous scholarship; highly recommended.?Clay Williams, Ferris State Univ., Big Rapids, Mich.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Philip II of Spain has received an almost uniformly bad press; scholars, particularly English and American, generally portray him as a narrow-minded, religious fanatic who reacted with predictable brutality to any stirrings of liberal religious or political thought. Kamen, currently a professor for the Council of Scientific Research in Barcelona, strives mightily to present a more balanced portrait. He scores points in indicating that the supposedly insular Philip traveled widely, mixed socially with Protestants in the Netherlands, and seemed willing to grant them a measure of religious (but not political) toleration. Instead of the absolute monarch often described in diatribes by Anglophiles, Kamen's Philip emerges as a ruler of a fragmented Spain who strived continually to cope with centrifugal forces. Kamen's prose is lucid, succinct, and thorough, without getting bogged down in details that would appeal strictly to specialists. In humanizing a man too often viewed as a cardboard tyrant, Kamen has made a valuable contribution to European historiography. Jay Freeman
From Kirkus Reviews
A scholarly and comprehensive biography that reconsiders the reputation of King Philip II of Spain (152798). As ruler of the most extensive empire the world had yet seen, Philip II has always been studied exclusively in terms of the political events and foreign policy of his reign. Kamen (Higher Council for Scientific Research, Spain) now offers the first true biography of Philip. The historian draws on new manuscript sources, including Philip's unpublished correspondence, and he emphasizes the part played by the New World in forming Philip's outlook. Emerging from a solitary childhood, which was overshadowed by his remote father, Emperor Charles V, the young Philip was a cultured Renaissance prince: He patronized Titian, took part in medieval jousts, and was caught up in the contemporary nostalgia for chivalry and the legends of King Arthur. His life, however, was to be dominated and shaped by serious problems, mainly springing from the convulsions caused in Europe by the Reformation and by his need as monarch to assert some measure of central control in Spain itself. Kamen explores, for example, the conflicts behind Philip's disastrous policy in the Netherlands and his brief dynastic marriage with England's Queen Mary, his attempt to invade England during the reign of Mary's Protestant successor, Elizabeth, and his interventions to protect the native populations from rapacious colonists in Spanish South America. While Kamen avoids easy revisionism, his Philip comes across as a dutiful and complex man whose freedom was paradoxically limited by his destiny. Deeply religious rather than fanatical, Philip supported the Spanish Inquisition as a matter of course but refused to attack the Jewish Conversos. His present black image, Kamen argues, can be traced to English and Dutch propaganda in the 1580s. Essential reading for all students of the turbulent 16th century. (32 illustrations, not seen) (History Book Club selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great Historial Perspective on King Phillip II
By Amazon Customer
Great historical perspective on King Phillip II. Good documentation, and author perspective.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Intriguing but Deflating
By Arthem
I suppose it is true of many a biography, and in individual experience, that we rarely recognize greatness in people we know well. Kamen does an excellent job painting an unconventional portrait of Philip. In the process, however, the "Black Legend" is reduced to a somewhat flighty renaissance princeling.
For whatever reason, I never received the anglophile's disdain for Philip. Perhaps it was Warren Carroll's portrait of Philip in his Christendom series, or Hillaire Belloc's view, both of which tended to paint Philip as the tragically ineffectual hero of Catholic Europe, standing in the breach against both the heretic and the Turk, and only partially saving Europe while dooming his own Empire.
As ought to have been expected, Kamen's well researched and presented portrait shows a complex individual, capable of progressivism (ala opposition to blood purity laws and early support for Tridentine reforms), while simultaneously enjoying the public manifestations of the Inquisition. The casual nature of Philip's early marriages contrasts starkly against his reaction to the death of his fourth wife. "Philip the Bureaucrat" would seem to be an apt title for a King paralyzed by paperwork, and unable to govern his vast realms due to slow communication, shifty underlings, and a byzantine political system that only Umberto Eco could love.
It is hard, in the end, to get a bead on Philip. It is indeed tragic for Spain that the many great chances for the establishment of their empire were lost in the various cataclysms of Dutch piracy, stormy seas, and overzealous generals - thus contributing to the later usurpation of Portugese westernization of the orient, English dominance of North America, and setting the stage for Cardianl Richelieu and far bloodier events in Europe.
Of course, Kamen avoids projecting out consequences, only hinting at the damage done to Spain by the misfortunes of Philip's reign. For a biography of "the world's most powerful man," the focus is so narrow as to be somewhat myopic. But it is at this price that we obtain the detail which saves Philip from both the Black Legend and latter-day sanctification - neither of which he deserves.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
This book explains many contemporary aspects of life
By A Customer
For anyone who has visited Philip's magnificent El Escorial palace outside Madrid and wondered at the power of this monarch when looking at his sober and modest bedroom (furnished only with a small chapel), this book is a must. Philip was the greatest Spanish King ever (his father, Charles, was not truly Spanish), possibly upstaged only by Juan Carlos, the current modern ruler. He was the first ever European monarch to be able to claim that the sun never set on his dominions, which stretched from Europe to America to the Phillipines.
Kamen explores his life and unintentionally offers information from which Spaniards, and their descendants in America, can explain much of their/our present culture. He possessed the mightiest army in Europe, but living inland, he did not develop a navy capable of bettering the British; this had implications for the future American nations that we still see today. He received enormous wealth from his American colonies, but it was all dillapidated in the senseless war and occupation of Holland and Belgium. He intended to modernize Spain by importing goods from the rest of Europe, but not ideas; this aided the development of North Europe and Italy but not of his country. And above all, he followed a policy of strict religious intolerance that insured that his realms remained Catholic --as was his wish---, but prevented his country and the future Spanish-speaking nations of America from developing truly democratic traditions. Spain, in particular, has seemed to oscillate like a pendulum ever since between intolerance and liberalism. When you read this book, you will trace this particular trait back to Philip as the greatest inheritor of Spain's eight centuries of nation-building through war.
Kamen presents this biography with no anti- or pro-Spanish taint, as far as I could notice. If anything, his position as a fellow with a Catalan institution is an asset that allows him to view the King of Castille from Spain's important periphery. His book provides for balanced reading and a wealth of information and general culture. I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the history of all of Spain and Spanish America, and not just Philip.
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