Philip of Spain

In too many ways, this more "modern" and "accurate" biography of the sixteenth century Spanish monarch proved *personally* disappointing, or at least anticlimactic. Contrary to the author's claim, it focuses primarily on the politics and environment of the period, rather than on its subject. This is not undesirable in itself - yet in doing so, it shattered the perceptions I'd formed of Philip II, perceptions that had passed beyond the realm of rational understanding into something subjective and quite emotionally volatile. Somehow, through overactive imagination and through older, less dispassionate texts, I had come to view him as the romanticized, psychologically repressed, tragic anti-hero from Schiller's Don Carlos, a repository of my deepest obsessions and insecurities, a target of self-righteous admiration and of equally self-righteous pity. This particular analysis, with its emphasis on facts and objectivity, has made me all too aware that, despite my mental gymnastics, Philip II is still ultimately an unknown and unknowable man who died some four centuries before my birth, entirely without connection to me personally, lost in the obscurity of history. Well researched but... kind of depressing.

As a once-historian of Latin American Colonial History I had hoped for an insightful adition to my library, but instead I found a badly written book, without any imagination or effort to make the material interesting: just a chronological list of events!

Kamen touches on all aspects of Philips life with great intuity. He exposes a man that was emotionally scarred more than once in his life, a man that worked incessently for the good of his country and of his religion. As well as being a pious and hard working man he was also a lover of fun, a side rarely seen in a personage of such stature. This book is a wonderful read and cannot fail to leave the reader wondering about Philip II of Spain, a monarch that until now has been over shadowed by his father Emperor Charles. On top of this Kamwen examines many of the aspects that affected the political events of the age.