**This course will be conducted entirely in English including lectures, class discussions, student presentations, and written assignments.**

Starting in the late Middle Ages, Spain established Europe’s largest and most powerful empire. It was the first of its kind since Charlemagne and it was the first truly global empire that spanned parts of Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia. This course surveys the history of the Spanish Empire and takes an in-depth look at daily life on the Iberian Peninsula in the age of empire. Topics include Spain’s territorial expansion; the development of governmental structures; politics and imperial policies; great monarchs; art in an imperial age; and the encounter with previously unknown human societies. A look at daily life will consider the lived realities, practices, customs, and mentalities of rural communities; literary depicitions of the daily struggle for survival; religiosity and spirituality; and violence in the form of the Spanish Inquisition.