Showing titles in Spain

The civil war that tore Spain apart between 1936 and 1939 and attracted liberals and socialists from across the world to support the cause against Franco was one of the most hard-fought and bitterest conflicts of the 20th century: a war of atrocities and political genocide and a military testing ground before WWII for the Russians, Italians and Germans, whose Condor Legion so notoriously destroyed Guernica.

In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane, knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, and ultimately doomed by a disastrous decision to separate the men from their ships, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. Of the 300 men who had embarked on the journey, only four survived - three Spaniards and an African slave.

From the foremost historian of 20th-century Spain, A People Betrayed is the story of the devastating betrayal of Spain by its political class, its military and its Church. This comprehensive history of modern Spain chronicles the fomenting of violent social division throughout the country by institutionalised corruption and startling political incompetence. Most spectacularly during the Primo de Rivera and Franco dictatorships, grotesque and shameless corruption went hand-in-hand with inept policies that prolonged Spain’s economic backwardness well into the 1950s.

As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire.

The conquistadores, the early explorers and settlers of Spanish America, have become the stuff of legends and nightmares. In their own time, they were glorified as heroic adventurers, spreading Christian culture and helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. Today, they stand condemned for their cruelty and exploitation as men who decimated the ancient civilisations of the Aztecs and the Incas and carried out horrific atrocities in their pursuit of gold and glory.

Europe is an astonishingly successful place. In this dazzling new history, best-selling author Simon Jenkins grippingly tells the story of its evolution from warring peoples to peace, wealth and freedom - a story that twists and turns from Greece and Rome, through the Dark Ages, the Reformation and the French Revolution, to the Second World War and up to the present day. Jenkins takes in leaders from Julius Caesar and Joan of Arc to Wellington and Angela Merkel as well as cultural figures from Aristotle to Shakespeare and Picasso.

Still considered one of the best books ever written about bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon reflects Hemingway's belief that bullfighting was more than mere sport. Here he describes and explains the technical aspects of this dangerous ritual, and "the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped on a stick."

Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain - "al-Andalus" - as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: It is a myth. In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity", Fernández-Morera sets the record straight.

Nora Berend uncovers how el Cid has been transformed across the centuries, confronting the gulf between truth and legend and examining how a military adventurer became a hero to people on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The story of the Cid forces us to confront what makes us human. What is it about this man that appeals to us? And why do we transform the most unsuitable people into heroes?

AD 796. Sailing in search of an object of great power, Hunlaf and his comrades are far from home when they are caught up in a violent skirmish against pirates. After the bloody onslaught, an encounter with ships from Islamic Spain soon sees them escorted under guard to the city of Qadis, one of the jewels of the Emirate of Al-Andalus and the true destination of their voyage. Hunlaf believes the Emir's lands hold the key to his search, but there are dangerous games at play.

España. Una historia abreviada recorre la dilatada historia de un país que, por su ubicación geográfica en el sureste de Europa, se ha visto y sigue viéndose expuesto a vientos culturales (políticos, pero también meteorológicos) desde todos los puntos cardinales. África se encuentra a tan solo catorce kilómetros hacia el sur, mientras que el Mediterráneo trajo las corrientes civilizatorias de fenicios, romanos, cartagineses y bizantinos, y conecta con las tierras árabes de Oriente Próximo.

From bloodthirsty conquest to exotic romance, stereotypes of Spain abound. This new volume by distinguished historian Stanley G. Payne draws on his half-century of experience to offer a balanced, broadly chronological survey of Spanish history from the Visigoths to the present. Who were the first “Spaniards”? Is Spain a fully Western country? Was Spanish liberalism a failure? Examining Spain's unique role in the larger history of Western Europe, Payne reinterprets key aspects of the country's history.

Por primera vez un volumen reúne la historia de España escrita por Arturo Pérez-Reverte durante más de cuatro años en su columna «Patente de corso» del XL Semanal. Un relato ameno, personal, a ratos irónico, pero siempre único, de nuestra accidentada historia a través de los siglos. Una obra concebida por el autor para, en palabras suyas, «divertirme, releer y disfrutar; un pretexto para mirar atrás desde los tiempos remotos hasta el presente, reflexionar un poco sobre ello y contarlo por escrito de una manera poco ortodoxa.»

Amid the many catastrophes of the 20th century, the Spanish Civil War continues to exert a particular fascination among history buffs and the layperson alike. This Very Short Introduction integrates the political, social, and cultural history of the Spanish Civil War. It sets out the domestic and international context of the war for a general audience. In addition to tracing the course of war, the book locates the war's origins in the cumulative social and cultural anxieties provoked by a process of rapid, uneven, and accelerating modernism taking place all over Europe.

Spain's transition to democracy after Franco's long dictatorship was widely hailed as a success, ushering in three decades of unprecedented progress and prosperity. Yet over the past decade, its political consensus has been under severe strain. A stable two-party system has splintered, with disruptive new parties on the far left and far right. No government has had a majority since 2015. Michael Reid overturns the stereotypical view of Spain as a country haunted by its Francoist past.

Orwell chronicled his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia. Here he brings to bear all the force of his humanity, passion and clarity, describing with bitter intensity the bright hopes and cynical betrayals of that chaotic episode: the revolutionary euphoria of Barcelona, the courage of ordinary Spanish men and women he fought alongside, the terror and confusion of the front, his near-fatal bullet wound and the vicious treachery of his supposed allies.

Drawing from both Christian and Islamic sources, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain demonstrates that the clash of arms between Christians and Muslims in the Iberian peninsula that began in the early eighth century was transformed into a crusade by the papacy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Successive popes accorded to Christian warriors willing to participate in the peninsular wars against Islam the same crusading benefits offered to those going to the Holy Land.

Throughout the centuries, Spain has been subject to the lordship of other countries. It was occupied by the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Visigoths, the French, and the Muslims. It has been the playground of both the respectful and the ruthless. The Spanish coasts have been occupied by the trading empires of Carthage and Rome. All that time, Spain was told by others how to run their country, how to fight, whom to fight, and where to fight.

Stanley Edward Lane-Poole (1854 - 1931) was a British orientalist and archaeologist. The Moors in Spain is a comprehensive history about the Moorish conquest and rule of the Iberian Peninsula, until the Spanish took back the land. It includes chapters on the last Visigothic kingdom, El Cid, and the fall of Granada.

From best selling author Russell Martin comes a stirring account of the town that inspired one of the world's most celebrated and controversial works of art, the painting Guernica's profound impact on the politics and culture of the 20th century, and the artist whose passion and artistic vision are unequaled in modern history.