"This outstanding introduction to Spanish history will attract general readers, historians, and travelers to Spain. Essential." -Choice "...well-written and engaging tour of Spanish history." -Robert E. Scully, Sixteenth Century Journal

William D. Phillips, Jr. is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and directed the Center for Early Modern History there from 2001 to 2008. His previous publications include Testimonies from the Columbus Lawsuits (edited 2000), The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (with Carla Rahn Phillips, 1992, 'Spain in America' (Second) Prize, awarded by the Spanish government), Historia de la esclavitud en Espana (1990), Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade (1985), and Enrique IV and the Crisis of Fifteenth-Century Castile (1978). He is a corresponding member of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. Carla Rahn Phillips is Union Pacific Professor in Comparative Early Modern History at the University of Minnesota. Her previous publications include Six Galleons for the King of Spain: Imperial Defense in the Early Seventeenth Century (1986, winner of the 1987 'Leo Gershoy Award' of the American Historical Association for best book in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European history), Spain's Golden Fleece: Wool Production and the Wool Trade from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (1997, with William D. Phillips, Jr., winner of the 1998 'Leo Gershoy Award' of the American Historical Association) and The Treasure of the San Jose: Death at Sea in the War of the Spanish Succession (2007, Award for Excellence in World History and Biography/Autobiography of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing division of the American Association of Publishers). She is a corresponding member of the Spanish Royal Academy of History.

Preface; 1. The land and its early inhabitants; 2. Ancient legacies; 3. Diversity in medieval Spain; 4. The rise of Spain to international prominence; 5. Spain as the first global empire; 6. Toward modernity: from the Napoleonic invasion to Alfonso XIII; 7. The struggle for the Spanish soul: republic, civil war, and dictatorship; 8. New Spain, new Spaniards: European, democratic, and multicultural; List of rulers; Short guide to further sources of information.