Product Description

Cardinal Richelieu is one of the best known and most studied statesmen in European history; his Spanish contemporary and rival, the Count-Duke of Olivares, one of the least known. The contrasting historical fortunes of the two men reflect the outcome of the great struggle in seventeenth-century Europe between France and Spain: the triumph of France assured the fame of Richelieu, while Spain’s failure condemned Olivares to historical neglect. This fascinating book by the distinguished historian J. H. Elliott argues that contemporaries, for whom Olivares was at least as important as Richelieu, shared none of posterity’s certainty about the inevitability of that outcome. His absorbing comparative portrait of the two men, as personalities and as statesmen, through their policies and their mutual struggle, offers unique insights into seventeenth-century Europe and the nature of power and statesmanship.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #595194 in Books
• Published on: 1991-07-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Review
‘J. H. Elliott’s elegant and penetrating study … is brief, readable, yet wide-ranging … Rather than offering a new orthodoxy, this pleasingly modest book has the great merit of raising questions it often does not pretend to solve, leaving the reader with plenty to think about.’ The Times Literary Supplement

Customer Reviews

Readable and interesting.
This book is a very interesting comparative study of two relevant statesmen of the XVII century, Richelieu and Olivares, the former very [bad-]known through the eyes of The Three Musketeers by Hollywood with the cooperation of Alexandre Dumas, the latter ignored by most of the people, as it usually happens with those that lose a war. Apart from being very readable (I bought it on Sun-day and I have finished by Tuesday) and not very long, the contrast between Richelieu and Oli-vares is useful to avoid topics and myths based on the supposedly a-religious and modern per-formance of the French Cardinal versus the obsolete behaviour and ideas of the Count-Duke, or on the national character of France and/or Spain. In the case of Olivares, I have found that this book dedicates more pages to deal with the psychological and/or personal aspects than Elliot's "The Count-Duke of Olivares. The Statesman in an age of decline", who focuses more on poli-tics.

(Other books I would recommend to read on Spain: As a general overview, "A History of Spain" by Joseph Perez; and more focused on the XVI and/or XVII centuries: "The Spain of Philip II" by Joseph Perez; "Imperial Spain 1469-1716" and "The Count-Duke of Olivares. The Statesman in an age of decline" both of them also written by John Elliot; "Spain 1469-1714, A Society of Conflict", by Henry Kamen; and " Spain 1516-1598 : From Nation State to World Empire" and "The His-panic World in Crisis and Change, 1598-1700" both of them written by John Lynch).