Henry Kamen obtained his doctorate at Oxford and has been a professor at universities in Britain, Spain and the United States. He is emeritus of the Higher Council for Scientific Research, Spain, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, London. An eminent authority on Spanish history, he has written over twenty studies in the field, including The Spanish Inquisition (new edition, 2014), Philip of Spain (1997), Spain's Road to Empire (2002), and The Escorial (2010).