The World Is Not Enough: The Imperial Vision of Philip II of Spain

Charles Edmondson Historical Lectures

by Geoffrey Parker

Professor Parker's lectures continue Baylor's tradition of
publishing first-rate scholarly presentations of some of the
world's finest historians. Often in the past, the Edmondson
Lectures have tended to fall into one of two distinct
categories: they either conveyed the results of recent
historical research, or they constituted a synthesis of a
scholar's lifetime work on a subject of major historical
importance. Professor Parker's lectures combine the two
approaches in a masterful way as he analyzes the manner in
which Philip II of Spain managed his global Empire while
being driven—and tragically handicapped—by an overpowering
messianic complex. Parker's lectures combine the most profound
insights with a lucidity of presentation.

About the Author:
Geoffrey Parker is the Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at
Ohio State University. A graduate of Cambridge University
(B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.), Parker has taught at St. Andrews
University, the University of Illinois, and Yale University.
He is the author of eleven books, part author of two, and
editor of another thirteen. Among his books are: Philip II;
Europe in Crisis, 1598-1659; The Spanish Armada; and
The Grand Strategy of Philip II.

68 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2001

About the author

Geoffrey Parker is Andreas Dorpalen Professor of European History and an Associate of the Mershon Center at The Ohio State University. He has published widely on the social, political and military history of early modern Europe, and in 2012 the Royal Dutch Academy recognized these achievements by awarding him its biennial Heineken Foundation Prize for History, open to scholars in any field, and any period, from any country.

Parker has written or co-written thirty-nine books, including The Military Revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 1988), winner of the 'best book prize' from both the American Military Institute and the Society for the History of Technology; The Grand Strategy of Philip II (Yale University Press, 1998), which won the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize from the Society of Military History; and Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century (Yale University Press, 2013), which won the Society of Military History’s Distinguished Book Prize and also one of the three medals awarded in 2014 by the British Academy for ‘a landmark academic achievement… which has transformed understanding of a particular subject’.

Before moving to Ohio State in 1997, Parker taught at Cambridge and St Andrews universities in Britain, at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and at Illinois and Yale Universities in the United States, teaching courses on the Reformation, European history and military history at both undergraduate and graduate levels. He has directed or co-directed over thirty Doctoral Dissertations to completion, as well as several undergraduate theses. In 2006 he won an OSU Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award.

He lives in Columbus, Ohio, and has four children. In 1987 he was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis. His latest book is Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II (Yale University Press, 2014).

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good overview of how Philip II thought about his reign. He was devout and also saw himself as a key instrument in God's design for the advancement of the Catholic faith, identifying his own plans closely with God's. Parker contends that his empire was so massive that it could not be adequately defended, and that Philip's absolute belief that his cause and God's were the same harmed his ability to make realistic plans.