Hugh Thomas > Quotes

“The experience of the Mayas is one more reminder that any interpretation of human evolution based on the idea of unilineal progress forwards (or upwards) is an illusion. Peoples decline as well as rise.”
― Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico

“Yet to read into the past the morality of our time (or the lack of it) may not make the historian’s task any easier.”
― Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico

“The philosophy of the discoveries, the emigration, and the colonisation was Christianity.”
― Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico

“The rising began at Melilla, the easternmost city of Spanish Morocco. In the night of 16–17 July, General Romerales, the local commander, looked for suspicious activity.”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“Mola at last gave a firm date for the rising: his telegrams read: ‘On the 15th last, at 4 A.M., Helen gave birth to a beautiful child.’ That meant when interpreted that the rising would begin in Morocco on 18 July at five o’clock in the morning.”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“The tragedy of his last months was a natural expression of the tragedy of Spain, where culture, eloquence and creativity were giving way to militarism, propaganda, and death. Before long, there was even a concentration camp called ‘Unamuno’ for republican prisoners.15”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“As he left home on 12 July, a hot Sunday of the Madrid summer, Castillo was shot dead by four men with revolvers, who swiftly escaped into the crowded streets.24”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“This congress was attended by Hemingway, Spender, Pablo Neruda, Nicolás Guillén, Octavio Paz, and most of the leading literary apologists for the republic.”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“The middle class in Spain were aghast at this murder of the leader of the parliamentary opposition by members of the regular police”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“After a quarter of a mile, Luis Cuenca, a young Galician socialist sitting beside the politician, shot him in the back of his neck. Neither Condés nor anyone else had expected this dénouement.”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“There is nothing that I should more fear, nor any kind of death that might threaten me, which would not be more supportable for me than to live without you and be separated by a great distance.

I would rather die or be eaten by fish in the sea or devored on land by cannibals than to consume myself in perpetual mourning and unceasing sorrow awaiting not my husband but his letters.”
― Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire from Columbus to Magellan

“Fernando Condés, an intimate friend of Castillo. Condés was broken by Castillo’s death.”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“That evening at nine o’clock, Lieutenant José Castillo of the assault guards was leaving home, in the Calle Augusto Figueroa, in the centre of Madrid, to begin his duty.”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“The middle class in Spain were aghast at this murder of the leader of the parliamentary opposition by members of the regular police. It was now natural to assume that the government could not control its own agents,”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“España dejó tras de sí una religión e innumerables monumentos, una tradición y mucha literatura. Sobre todo, creó provincias y dominios que lograron madurar en los nuevos países independientes de América Latina. Gran Bretaña no lo hizo tan bien en Oriente Medio, África ni el Lejano Oriente. India y Pakistán son dos países en guerra; México y Argentina, no. Las guerras en América Latina son raras. En comparación con el resto del mundo, se nos antoja ahora un oasis de paz.

La presencia de la madre patria continúa siendo una fuerte influencia sobre todo en la vida literaria; y la vida literaria sobresale con fuerza en la cultura hispanoamericana. Resulta permisible preguntarse si ocurrió alguna vez el ocaso de España y el fin de su imperio cuando se visita América Latina.”
― Hugh Thomas, World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire

“Juan de Ayora”
― Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico

“Pero los conquistadores no solo buscaban plata y oro. La mayoría de ellos creían que el beneficio a largo plazo de sus descubrimientos sería la aceptación por parte de los nativos de la cristiandad, con todas las consecuencias culturales que ello implicaba.

Ellos sabían, como la Corona española planteó en 1504, que estaban «ennobleciendo» las nuevas tierras con cristianos. Hicieron sus conquistas con una clara conciencia de que estaban llevando consigo civilización, creyendo que esto permitiría, al final, que esa nueva gente abandonara sus condiciones anteriores. ¿Quién podría dudar ahora de que estuviera bien que censuraran la idea de una religión basada en el sacrificio humano o en la simple adoración del sol o la lluvia?

(...)

Así fue con la generación del 1500 en España. Sabían que su misión era buscar nuevas almas cristianas. El oro y la gloria eran los que sostenían el escudo de la cristiandad.”
― Hugh Thomas, El imperio español: de Colón a Magallanes

“Henceforward, it was the republican state which was at war with the nationalist state, rather than revolution against rebellion.”
― Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

“The first concern derived from the fact that the Mexica had”
― Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico