First Things RSS Feed - Christopher S. Johnson https://www.firstthings.com/author/christopher-s-johnson en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:52:05 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/christopher-s-johnson 60 How Much Ruin is in a Nation?: The Spain of Philip IV https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/03/how-much-ruin-is-in-a-nation https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/03/how-much-ruin-is-in-a-nation Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:01:00 -0400 “Be assured my young friend, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” Adam Smith wrote to a distraught friend after the battle of Saratoga (1777). Smith’s assurance begs a large question: Just how much ruin is there in a nation?

History’s stores contain food for thought. For those seeking a classic case of precipitate unraveling, it would be difficult to better the example of Spain under Philip IV (1621“1665), a truly remarkable plummet from the heights of European power to something very like decrepitude in a span of little over twenty years.Hapsburg Spain was off to a head start by the time Philip inherited a longstanding fiscal crisis along with the throne from his father, the feckless Philip III (1598“1621), whose greatest service to his realm may have been dying prematurely and leaving the Spanish empire to a boy of sixteen.

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