Isabella The Warrior Queen

An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in history.

In 1474, when most women were almost powerless, twenty-three-year-old Isabella defied a hostile brother and a mercurial husband to seize control of Castile and León. Her subsequent feats were legendary. She ended a twenty-four-generation struggle between Muslims and Christians, forcing North African invaders back over the Mediterranean Sea. She laid the foundation for a unified Spain. She sponsored Columbus’s trip to the Indies and negotiated Spanish control over much of the New World. She also annihilated all who stood against her by establishing a bloody religious Inquisition that would darken Spain’s reputation for centuries.

Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world. Yet history has all but forgotten Isabella’s influence. Using new scholarship, Downey’s luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command.

KIRSTIN DOWNEY is the author of The Woman Behind the New Deal, which was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was one of the writers of the New York Times bestselling Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and was previously a staff writer at the Washington Post, where she shared in the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. She was a Neiman fellow at Harvard University in 2001. She is married to Neil Warner Averitt, and together they have five children.

Maps

Prologue
One | A Birth Without Fanfare
Two | A Childhood in the Shadows
Three | Frightening Years
Four | Isabella Faces the Future Alone
Five | Marriage
Six | Ferdinand and His Family
Seven | The Newlyweds
Eight | The Borgia Connection
Nine | Preparing to Rule
Ten | Isabella Takes the Throne
Eleven | The Tribe of Isabel  
Twelve | The Whole World Trembled
Thirteen | The Queen’s War
Fourteen | Architects of the Inquisition
Fifteen | Landing in Paradise
Sixteen | Borgia Gives Her the World
Seventeen | Lands of Vanity and Illusion
Eighteen | Faith and Family  
Nineteen | Turks at the Door
Twenty | Israel in Exile
Twenty-one | Three Daughters
Twenty-two | A Church Without a Shepherd
Twenty-three | The Death of Queen Isabella
Twenty-four | The World After Isabella
Afterword

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index