Book excerpt: The European Cultural Routes of the Emperor Charles V is one of the most significant routes to have been recognised by the European Council. Ruling over distant and strikingly differing lands, Charles V of Hapsburg, the greatest European monarch of the first half of the 16th century, governed an empire that stretched from Holland and Germany to Spain and the Kingdom of Naples, in addition to his constantly growing America domains. The book, A New World. Emperor Charles V and the Beginnings of Globalisation, is an occasion to reflect upon how his reign impacted upon human development and how, through the rapid growth of communications and connectivity, we have ended up where we are now. The reign of Charles V was a major threshold in history that, along with images of the life and culture of the time, the papers in this book amply illustrate.