ebooks Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II (American Business; Politics; and Society) by Mark R. Wilson in History

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From one of the greatest historians of the Spanish world; here is a fresh and fascinating account of Spain’s early conquests in the Americas. Hugh Thomas’s magisterial narrative of Spain in the New World has all the characteristics of great historical literature: amazing discoveries; ambition; greed; religious fanaticism; court intrigue; and a battle for the soul of humankind.Hugh Thomas shows Spain at the dawn of the sixteenth century as a world power on the brink of greatness. Her monarchs; Fernando and Isabel; had retaken Granada from Islam; thereby completing restoration of the entire Iberian peninsula to Catholic rule. Flush with success; they agreed to sponsor an obscure Genoese sailor’s plan to sail west to the Indies; where; legend purported; gold and spices flowed as if they were rivers. For Spain and for the world; this decision to send Christopher Columbus west was epochal—the dividing line between the medieval and the modern.Spain’s colonial adventures began inauspiciously: Columbus’s meagerly funded expedition cost less than a Spanish princess’s recent wedding. In spite of its small scale; it was a mission of astounding scope: to claim for Spain all the wealth of the Indies. The gold alone; thought Columbus; would fund a grand Crusade to reunite Christendom with its holy city; Jerusalem. The lofty aspirations of the first explorers died hard; as the pursuit of wealth and glory competed with the pursuit of pious impulses. The adventurers from Spain were also; of course; curious about geographical mysteries; and they had a remarkable loyalty to their country. But rather than bridging earth and heaven; Spain’s many conquests bore a bitter fruit. In their search for gold; Spaniards enslaved “Indians” from the Bahamas and the South American mainland. The eloquent protests of Bartolomé de las Casas; here much discussed; began almost immediately. Columbus and other Spanish explorers—Cortés; Ponce de León; and Magellan among them—created an empire for Spain of unsurpassed size and scope. But the door was soon open for other powers; enemies of Spain; to stake their claims.Great men and women dominate these pages: cardinals and bishops; priors and sailors; landowners and warriors; princes and priests; noblemen and their determined wives.Rivers of Gold is a great story brilliantly told. More significant; it is an engrossing history with many profound—often disturbing—echoes in the present.