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Article: The Grand Strategy of Philip II.(Review)
- Article from:
- History Today
- Article date:
- July 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 History Today Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Grand Strategy of Philip II Geoffrey Parker Yale University Press 446 pp. 25.00. [pounds sterling] ISBN: 0-300-07540-5
SPAIN'S MOST CATHOLIC KING as the Bill Gates of sixteenth-century Europe? The Escorial, a great gloomy multiplex of church, monastery and palace inhabited by a Chairman of the Board poring over `Rest of the World' markets, sustained by Hieronymite monks constantly chanting the Hours of the Divine Office? Not the least of the strengths of Geoffrey Parker's magisterial book is that he shows how the characteristics of modern multinational and Counter-Reformation imperium fold into each other.
The sweep of Philip II's grasp on ...