Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2003, the first volume of Thomas’s planned trilogy on the Spanish Empire (followed by The Golden Age in 2010 and World Without End in 2014). The book covers the thirty years from Columbus’s first voyage in 1492 to the death of Magellan in 1522 — the period in which Spain established its imperial presence in the Caribbean, conquered the Aztec Empire, and circumnavigated the globe.
Thomas’s narrative proceeds chronologically but with frequent digressions into the social, economic, and intellectual context: the structure of Spanish society in the age of Ferdinand and Isabella, the role of the Church, the economic motivations of exploration, the legal and theological debates about the treatment of indigenous peoples. He is particularly good on the personalities involved — Columbus (brilliant, paranoid, and increasingly deranged), Las Casas (passionate, self-righteous, and genuinely heroic), Ferdinand (shrewd and cold), Isabella (devout and implacable).
The “rivers of gold” of the title refers to the wealth that flowed from the New World to Spain — gold, silver, and the labor of millions of indigenous people — and Thomas does not flinch from documenting the human cost of that wealth. But he also refuses to reduce the Spanish enterprise to mere greed: the motivations of the conquerors included genuine religious zeal, intellectual curiosity, and the desire for glory as well as the appetite for wealth.
Collecting Rivers of Gold
First edition (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2003): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $20–$50
- Without jacket: $8–$15