![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In particular, he holds the king personally responsible for murder and mass bloodshed: “The king’s decision to renew the war in the Netherlands caused the death of tens of thousands of men, women and children.” In his final chapter, Parker dedicates a three-page discussion to the theories of Sigmund Freud, enabling him to arrive at his conclusion, about Philip II, that “people with obsessional personalities are poorly equipped as leaders.” Some readers may find the hostility to the king a bit excessive, if only because most other historians do not read the evidence in the same way, but if readers can overlook it they will find in these pages a very readable and for the most part reliable account of Philip II’s politics. Parker considers Philip to have been directly responsible for everything that went wrong during his reign. Readers will find in it not only a superbly informed narrative of Philip II’s long career as Europe’s most powerful king but also a highly negative interpretation of the king’s personality and policies. The study by Parker, a leading expert on the king’s military policies, is backed up by over fifty pages of learned references and is essentially a shortened version of a massive volume he published in Spanish in 2010. By some coincidence, these two substantial books on Spain’s best-known sixteenth-century king were published in the same year and cover all the important aspects of Philip II’s international policies. ![]()
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