Six Galleons for the King of Spain: Imperial Defense in the Early Seventeenth Century (Softshell Books)

Carla Rahn Phillips

1 In-depth historical research
A narrative and quantatative history of Spanish shipbuilding, from planning through finance and design to construction, (including measurements, technology, materials, labor, location, etc....), manning, victualing and deployment. There is a bit of subsequent history for each specific ship mentioned, though not enough to satisfy my interest. Perhaps the sources were not sufficiently informative.... Included are some insights into; Spanish monarchical naval policy, workings of the bureacracy and officialdom, politics and motivations of the naval leadership. The book includes a brief overview of colonial naval and maritime conditions and policy and a nice summary of Spanish fiscal policies and economic conditions at the time. There is just enough background to appreciate the topic, but certainly not "ample," material to justify the title as a history of "Imperial Defense" during the era. In retrospect, I think I read a doctoral thesis. I imagine myself back in graduate school, being assigned a scholarly text on an obscure topic by my history professor. All that said, it was highly readable for a scholarly text.

This history is an in-depth (social and quantitative) analysis of shipbuilding, politics, manning and provisioning for historians or serious lay students of naval and maritime history. It has elements of modern "European" style history--localized, specific, detailed, limited. This style of history is often called "the new history." For example, there is a wealth of material about the types of provisions placed on-board; where grown, how financed, where purchased, price variations, transport, amount and even location of the consumption, how replenished, dietary conditions, etc....
In addition, there is a bit of comparative history, for example in the differences in shipbuilding techniques and design principles.

The bottom line--this is a scholarly work in which a graduate student or historian might have interest. The title may be enticing, but this is not a history intended for a wide public audience. It is a solid supplement to naval history libraries, treating a heretofore much-ignored subject. This book is emphatically not suitable for readers who seek a general naval history of the era of Spanish exploration and colonization.

Interested and scholarly readers of naval history should also consider buying the companion book which concentrates upon the manning of the treasure fleets during the period, also available currently from this bookseller.

"Six Galleons...." has a useful bibliography but since I am unfamiliar with the Spanish and English-language primary and secondary sources, I cannot say if the bibliography is sufficiently thorough nor if it represents all the best sources available. It is well known, however, that the Spanish government archives are extremely detailed and thorough, so insofar as that source was utilized, the work is probably highly accurate.

Congratulations to the author for a significant contribution to historical research in a subject so long ignored in English-language naval history. We students of European naval history yearn for more English-language Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and French naval histories. (We just hope they are less limited in scope.)

A note on the rating: I am not a practicing historian, just a serious lay student of naval history. And, I don't award "5's." This "4" is an indication that insofar as a detailed limited history of a topic was intended, and insofar as I am familiar with the subject, the book merits a "4" for quality and readability.