Daily quote by Spain

• Europe—or rather Spain and Portugal—started building empires in the 1500s. ...[T]hey had interlocking systems—religious, political, administrative and commercial—that together reinforced the reasons to seek power in the form of political conquest. Empire building made political-military, ideological-religious, and economic sense. Spain's conquistadors set out to serve the king, to spread the word of God, and to get rich. Other adventurers and wannabe imperialists from elsewhere... did not have such a strong set of interlocking incentives and capabilities. ...The Portuguese—and the Spanish, and later the Dutch, French, and British—had it all, gold, guns, God, and kings, working together. ...1500 to 1770 was an Imperial-Commercial Age, with imperialism and globalization advancing along all their dimensions ...for great good and great ill.
  • J. Bradford DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (2022)