Pablo E. Perez-Mallaina
1 Those in peril on the sea
If you're on this page, this is the book you're looking for, period. Excellent translation, lots of pictures, touches every conceivable subject, has enough gore for the most morbidly curious soul. I took off a star only because it was so expensive!
(Sensitive people might want to skip the punishments for poor homosexuals, though there are some heroic tales.)
2 GOOD EXPLANATORY and INFORMATIVE BOOK
To every person that wishes to know more about other cultures, times and people, this book is going to be very refreshing. When Spain was on its way to be the first nation of the world, it is funny to realize how they did not care about the infraestructure, and even though the author does not say in a direct way, one can see why the british empire and later the american had a better and longer success. You learn about all the legal problems people found to travel to the new world when they belong to the Spanish Kingdom compare with the benefits of travelling that british and people from the Lower Countries had. The lack of interest in achieving improvements in the ships and ports even though the business was running away from Spain more and more. The lack of preparation, studies and developing a good infraestructure in the new world to be able to handle all the commerce and traffic that ironicaly was reporting high benefits for them (remember everybody was jellous and afraid of Spain's growing power)and would have made them a very powerful empire had they just care a little bit and organize it some more. Nonetheless, the book is very informative about and era and the people who lived in it. Details and anecqdotes are well research. One gets the feeling of what it was like living in those times. The book is also good when it does the description of the ships itself and its inhabitants. The life conditions onboard, nutrition, entertaiment-every kind of entertaiment-, and other that will be of the amusement of the reader. Interesting people on board of the vessels, I might say.
I also learnt about navigation laws and costumes of the times, and it all added to the value of the lecture.
What the book missed-always from my perspective- is a little portray or description of the country, europe and what was happening around those times, and yet, that does not take anything from the book, and one can still see why Spain did not achieve much more than what it actually did.
This book was a good complement of "The Mediterranean and the mediterranean world in Age of Phillip the Second" by Fernad Braudel. That book is soo good, that i wanted to keep reading about it, and wanted to go deep into some areas. When one compare the seamen from Spain and from Engand the difference is so obvious.
A good and entertaining book for every history "lover" like myself.
