Fully revised and updated to take account of the latest research by historians, the second edition of this popular volume remains the only textbook in English to give full coverage to both domestic and foreign policy in the period. Henry Kamen presents Spain as a poor nation thrust reluctantly into an imperial role for which it was never fully equipped, and which provoked deep internal divisions and conflicts. He observes that Spaniards continued to question and debate the unification of their country, the conquest of America, the wars in the Netherlands, the role of the Inquisition, the expulsion of the Moriscos and many other aspects of public policy.