A Short History of the World by Christopher Lascelles

Author:Christopher Lascelles [Lascelles, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Crux Publishing Ltd
Published: 2012-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

…while Spain and Portugal Decline

The Portuguese and Spanish empires, on the other hand, united temporarily under Spanish rule from 1580 to 1640, were on the wane. It was Portugal’s misfortune to be united under the same crown as Spain at a time when Spain was waging war on half the world and becoming increasingly isolated in the process. All of these wars led the country to bankruptcy which, despite Spain’s massive influx of wealth from the Americas, it declared three times in the 16th century. Spain was also determined to stamp out any free thought or intellectual activity that might challenge Catholicism. With this aim, books were banned,77 students were forbidden to study abroad, and any foreign thought was, by its very nature, unwelcome.

Fearful of change, the Iberian peninsula78 failed to develop at the same pace as the rest of Europe and missed out on the Reformation which had done so much to develop the continent. Additionally, the flood of wealth from the New World – which incidentally led to unforeseen and serious inflation – did not encourage innovation as most goods could simply be bought.

Portugal, under the House of Braganza, eventually reclaimed its independence from Spain in 1640, but by then it was too late for the country to regain its former glory. By this time, it had been weakened by the suppression of free thought and had lost its leadership on navigational techniques that had made it strong in the first place.

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