The rise and decline of Spain as a world power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is one of the great epics of history. By the 1580s Philip II governed not one but two empires - Spain and Portugal - on which the sun never set. Yet centrifugal forces within this massive territorial agglomeration, most severely manifested in a seris of major rebellions, slowly pulled it apart, and these strains were compounded by natural catastrophes. This module will look at how and why the Spanish Monarchy under the Habsburgs lost its cohesion, its primacy in European power relations and its economic stability. It will also examine the cultural policies of the Monarchy and consider what really mattered to the governing elites and their subjects in this diverse early modern composite state.

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