Richard L. Kagan is a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the editor, with Philip D. Morgan, of Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800, and the translator and editor, with Abigail Dyer, of Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics, both published by Johns Hopkins.

Kagan gives shape to an adversarial process among Spanish historians, royal advisers, and rulers to establish some measure of objective truth, ever so elusive, in official, commissioned histories of Spain's kings between the late Middle Ages and the reign of Charles II... This work provides fascinating, welcomed research on writing official history behind the scenes. Highly recommended. Choice 2010 Researched and written with characteristic skill and grace, Clio and the Crown offers a much-needed survey of the social and intellectual milieus in which scholars from Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada in the thirteenth century to Juan Bautista Munoz in the eighteenth labored to create a national historiography suitable to the needs of the Spanish court. Renaissance Quarterly 2010 Deeply researched and well-written work... Both the book and its extensive bibliographies of primary and secondary sources will therefore remain indispensable to future researchers for years to come. American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain Newsletter 2010 Clio and the Crown is a considerable achievement for the understanding of history in the Renaissance and its aftermath. -- John M. Headley Journal of Modern History 2011

• PrefaceList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Official History1. Empire and History2. Historia pro Persona: Emperor Charles V3. Historia pro Patria: Philip II4. ''His Majesty's History''5. Defending Imperium6. ''To Mortify Our Enemies'': History and Propaganda at the Court of Philip IV7. Critical History or Official History?Conclusion: Rethinking Official HistorySelected BibliographyIndex

Richard L. Kagan is a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the editor, with Philip D. Morgan, of Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800, and the translator and editor, with Abigail Dyer, of Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics, both published by Johns Hopkins.

Kagan gives shape to an adversarial process among Spanish historians, royal advisers, and rulers to establish some measure of objective truth, ever so elusive, in official, commissioned histories of Spain's kings between the late Middle Ages and the reign of Charles II... This work provides fascinating, welcomed research on writing official history behind the scenes. Highly recommended. Choice 2010 Researched and written with characteristic skill and grace, Clio and the Crown offers a much-needed survey of the social and intellectual milieus in which scholars from Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada in the thirteenth century to Juan Bautista Munoz in the eighteenth labored to create a national historiography suitable to the needs of the Spanish court. Renaissance Quarterly 2010 Deeply researched and well-written work... Both the book and its extensive bibliographies of primary and secondary sources will therefore remain indispensable to future researchers for years to come. American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain Newsletter 2010 Clio and the Crown is a considerable achievement for the understanding of history in the Renaissance and its aftermath. -- John M. Headley Journal of Modern History 2011

• PrefaceList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Official History1. Empire and History2. Historia pro Persona: Emperor Charles V3. Historia pro Patria: Philip II4. ''His Majesty's History''5. Defending Imperium6. ''To Mortify Our Enemies'': History and Propaganda at the Court of Philip IV7. Critical History or Official History?Conclusion: Rethinking Official HistorySelected BibliographyIndex