El resurgir español 1713-1748

Historiography has not been kind to Felipe V, the first Bourbon to reign in Spain, from 1700 to 1746. Called incapable, indolent and dominated by his second wife, Isabel de Farnesio, the truth is that under his scepter the Monarchy Hispánica was once again a dynamic and expansionist power, particularly in the Mediterranean theater, with campaigns in Italy and North Africa. The Spanish resurgence 1713-1748 affects the profound change that the establishment of the Bourbons meant with respect to the attitudes and practices of the Habsburgs, underlining the role that this monarch had in the revival of Spanish power from 1713, both in the reconstruction of the Army and the Navy and, on a diplomatic level, in its ability to weave a new network of alliances. In addition, it questions the traditional paradigm about the Atlantic orientation of the Monarchy in the first half of the 18th century, emphasizing Hispanic control over the western Mediterranean, theater of operations where the Spanish campaigns took place during the War of the Quadruple Alliance ( 1717-1720) and the wars of Polish succession (1733-1738) and Austrian succession (1740-1748), and the positions both in Spain and in Italy before the attempt of Felipe V, dissatisfied with the clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht, to rebuild the Spanish Empire, and in this sense makes us rethink the usual narrative about the history of Europe. Christopher Storrs, Hispanist and professor at the University of Dundee, drinks from a vast array of primary sources to document the political, financial and military innovations that laid the foundations of the modern Spanish State and thus contributed to the emergence of a national identity, making special emphasis on the personal contribution of Philip V himself in achieving this Spanish revival.