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Emperor

A New Life of Charles V

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Emperor

By: Geoffrey Parker
Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
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About this listen

The life of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers. But the elusive nature of the man (despite an abundance of documentation), his relentless travel and the control of his own image, together with the complexity of governing the world's first transatlantic empire, complicate the task.

Geoffrey Parker, one of the world's leading historians of early modern Europe, has examined the surviving written sources in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, as well as visual and material evidence. He explores the crucial decisions that created and preserved this vast empire, analyzes Charles' achievements within the context of both personal and structural factors, and scrutinizes the intimate details of the ruler's life for clues to his character and inclinations. The result is a unique biography that interrogates every dimension of Charles' reign and views the world through the emperor's own eyes.

©2019 Geoffrey Parker (P)2019 Tantor 16th Century Europe Medieval Modern Politicians Politics & Activism Royalty Middle Ages Italy Biography Imperialism Global Crisis

Critic Reviews

"This is a splendid book. It's well-written, engaging the reader, even while marshalling to good use a truly impressive erudition...." (James D. Tracy, author of Emperor Charles V)
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Very interesting!! Have read many books where Charles V is a part of the story but until listening to this have never known much about the man behind the title. Well written and well read!!!! And now I’m about to start listening to the book about his son Philip II by the same author.

Emperor

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It's a bit slow to get going if you're here for the geopolitical and dynastic thrills and spills, but after a good few hours going through Charles' half-interesting and occasionally somewhat hard to follow childhood and early interactions with councillors, the man himself starts to emerge on a supremely demanding world stage and it's a fascinating page turner from then on. Deep dives into Charles' wars with France, the Pope, his own subjects and Lutheranism. Less detailed but robust looks at his relationships with his family,, domestic politics, England and interactions with the Ottoman Empire and his American colonies. Lots of astute commentary on Charles as a human being and the logistics of running a global empire in the 16th century. Narrator's does a great job with both narrative and reflective sequences and handles French + Spanish well, if perhaps a tad more hesitant with German and Dutch. Easy recommend if you've got a decent whack of time and want to better understand Renaissance Europe, or just a good historical story.

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