Download or read book Spain Beyond Myths written by Carlos Alonso Zaldívar and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Om det spanske samfund i 1990'erne i europæisk sammenhæng med et tilbageblik på årene fra 1977 til idag med afsnit om økonomi og teknologiens betydning for det moderne Spanien
Download or read book Spain Beyond Spain written by Bradley S. Epps and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spain Beyond Spain: Modernity, Literary History, and National Identity is a collection of essays in modern Spanish literary and cultural studies by sixteen specialists from Spain, the United States, and Great Britain. The essays have a common point of origin: a major conference, entitled Espana fuera de Espana: Los espacios de la historia literaria, held in the spring of 2001 at Harvard University. The essays also have a common focus: the fate of literary history in the wake of theory and its attendant programs of inquiry, most notably cultural studies, post colonial studies, new historicism, women's studies, and transatlantic studies. Their points of arrival, however, vary significantly. What constitutes Spain and what counts as Spanish are primary concerns, subtending related questions of history, literature, nationality, and cultural production. Brad Epps is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of the Committee on Degrees in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Harvard University. Luis Fernandez Cifuentes is Robert S. and Ilse Friend Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.
Download or read book Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest written by Matthew Restall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-28 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an intriguing exploration of the ways in which the history of the Spanish Conquest has been misread and passed down to become popular knowledge of these events. The book offers a fresh account of the activities of the best-known conquistadors and explorers, including Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro. Using a wide array of sources, historian Matthew Restall highlights seven key myths, uncovering the source of the inaccuracies and exploding the fallacies and misconceptions behind each myth. This vividly written and authoritative book shows, for instance, that native Americans did not take the conquistadors for gods and that small numbers of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. We discover that Columbus was correctly seen in his lifetime--and for decades after--as a briefly fortunate but unexceptional participant in efforts involving many southern Europeans. It was only much later that Columbus was portrayed as a great man who fought against the ignorance of his age to discover the new world. Another popular misconception--that the Conquistadors worked alone--is shattered by the revelation that vast numbers of black and native allies joined them in a conflict that pitted native Americans against each other. This and other factors, not the supposed superiority of the Spaniards, made conquests possible. The Conquest, Restall shows, was more complex--and more fascinating--than conventional histories have portrayed it. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest offers a richer and more nuanced account of a key event in the history of the Americas.
Download or read book The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise written by Dario Fernandez-Morera and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-07-11 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A finalist for World Magazine's Book of the Year! Scholars, journalists, and even 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. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise shines light on hidden history by drawing on an abundance of primary sources that scholars have ignored, as well as archaeological evidence only recently unearthed. This supposed beacon of peaceful coexistence began, of course, with the Islamic Caliphate's conquest of Spain. Far from a land of religious tolerance, Islamic Spain was marked by religious and therefore cultural repression in all areas of life and the marginalization of Christians and other groups—all this in the service of social control by autocratic rulers and a class of religious authorities. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise provides a desperately needed reassessment of medieval Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity," Fernández-Morera sets the historical record straight—showing that a politically useful myth is a myth nonetheless.
Download or read book Lazy Improvident People written by Ruth MacKay and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early modern era, historians and observers of Spain, both within the country and beyond it, have identified a peculiarly Spanish disdain for work, especially manual labor, and have seen it as a primary explanation for that nation's alleged failure to develop like the rest of Europe. In "Lazy, Improvident People," the historian Ruth MacKay examines the origins of this deeply ingrained historical prejudice and cultural stereotype. MacKay finds these origins in the ilustrados, the Enlightenment intellectuals and reformers who rose to prominence in the late eighteenth century. To advance their own, patriotic project of rationalization and progress, they disparaged what had gone before. Relying in part on late medieval and early modern political treatises about "vile and mechanical" labor, they claimed that previous generations of Spaniards had been indolent and backward. Through a close reading of the archival record, MacKay shows that such treatises and dramatic literature in no way reflected the actual lives of early modern artisans, who were neither particularly slothful nor untalented. On the contrary, they behaved as citizens, and their work was seen as dignified and essential to the common good. MacKay contends that the ilustrados' profound misreading of their own past created a propagandistic myth that has been internalized by subsequent intellectuals. MacKay's is thus a book about the notion of Spanish exceptionalism, the ways in which this notion developed, and the burden and skewed vision it has imposed on Spaniards and outsiders. "Lazy, Improvident People" will fascinate not only historians of early modern and modern Spain but all readers who are concerned with the process by which historical narratives are formed, reproduced, and given authority.
Download or read book Beyond the Spanish State written by R. Jones and published by Springer. This book was released on 2000-09-25 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond the Spanish State is a well researched and accessibly written study of EU policy-making in Spain. From the fishermen in Andalusia fighting to protect their quotas, to regional governments demanding a greater say in EU Structural Funds, the book represents a masterful effort to delve deeper into the dynamic relations between central government and other actors in the domestic arena. Conclusions most directly pertain to the case of Spain but, nonetheless, provide an insight into the broader EU framework.
Download or read book Straits written by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An uncompromising study of the fictions, the failures, and the real man behind the myth of Magellan. With Straits, celebrated historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto subjects the surviving sources to the most meticulous scrutiny ever, providing a timely and engrossing biography of the real Ferdinand Magellan. The truth that Fernández-Armesto uncovers about Magellan’s life, his character, and the events of his ill-fated voyage offers up a stranger, darker, and even more compelling narrative than the fictional version that has been celebrated for half a millennium. Magellan did not attempt—much less accomplish—a journey around the globe. In his lifetime he was abhorred as a traitor, reviled as a tyrant, self-condemned to destruction, and dismissed as a failure. Straits untangles the myths that made Magellan a hero and discloses the reality of the man, probing the passions and tensions that drove him to adventure and drew him to disaster. We see the mutations of his character: pride that became arrogance, daring that became recklessness, determination that became ruthlessness, romanticism that became irresponsibility, and superficial piety that became, in adversity, irrational exaltation. As the real Magellan emerges, so do his real ambitions, focused less on circumnavigating the world or cornering the global spice market than on exploiting Filipino gold. Straits is a study in failure and the paradox of Magellan’s career, showing that renown is not always a reflection of merit but often a gift and accident of circumstance.
Download or read book Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders written by Charles Montgomery Skinner and published by Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott. This book was released on 1898 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest written by Matthew Restall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an intriguing exploration of the ways in which the history of the Spanish Conquest has been misread and passed down to become popular knowledge of these events. The book offers a fresh account of the activities of the best-known conquistadors and explorers, including Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro. Using a wide array of sources, historian Matthew Restall highlights seven key myths, uncovering the source of the inaccuracies and exploding the fallacies and misconceptions behind each myth. This vividly written and authoritative book shows, for instance, that native Americans did not take the conquistadors for gods and that small numbers of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. We discover that Columbus was correctly seen in his lifetime--and for decades after--as a briefly fortunate but unexceptional participant in efforts involving many southern Europeans. It was only much later that Columbus was portrayed as a great man who fought against the ignorance of his age to discover the new world. Another popular misconception--that the Conquistadors worked alone--is shattered by the revelation that vast numbers of black and native allies joined them in a conflict that pitted native Americans against each other. This and other factors, not the supposed superiority of the Spaniards, made conquests possible. The Conquest, Restall shows, was more complex--and more fascinating--than conventional histories have portrayed it. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest offers a richer and more nuanced account of a key event in the history of the Americas.
Download or read book Beyond the Myth of Nationality written by Semin Suvarierol and published by Eburon Uitgeverij B.V.. This book was released on 2007 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Institutions of Modern Spain written by Michael T. Newton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-28 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive guide to Spain's major political and economic institutions, analysing their role, structure and functions, as well as their relationship to each other.
Download or read book The Eve of Spain written by Patricia E. Grieve and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Eve of Spain demonstrates how the telling and retelling of one of Spain’s founding myths played a central role in the formation of that country’s national identity. King Roderigo, the last Visigoth king of Spain, rapes (or possibly seduces) La Cava, the daughter of his friend and counselor, Count Julian. In revenge, the count travels to North Africa and conspires with its Berber rulers to send an invading army into Spain. So begins the Muslim conquest and the end of Visigothic rule. A few years later, in Northern Spain, Pelayo initiates a Christian resistance and starts a new line of kings to which the present-day Spanish monarchy traces its roots. Patricia E. Grieve follows the evolution of this story from the Middle Ages into the modern era, as shifts in religious tolerance and cultural acceptance influenced its retelling. She explains how increasing anti-Semitism came to be woven into the tale during the Christian conquest of the peninsula—in the form of traitorous Jewish conspirators. In the sixteenth century, the tale was linked to the looming threat of the Ottoman Turks. The story continued to resonate through the Enlightenment and into modern historiography, revealing the complex interactions of racial and religious conflict and evolving ideas of women’s sexuality. In following the story of La Cava, Rodrigo, and Pelayo, Grieve explains how foundational myths and popular legends articulate struggles for national identity. She explores how myths are developed around few historical facts, how they come to be written into history, and how they are exploited politically, as in the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 followed by that of the Moriscos in 1609. Finally, Grieve focuses on the misogynistic elements of the story and asks why the fall of Spain is figured as a cautionary tale about a woman’s sexuality.
Download or read book The Art of Time written by Nina L Molinaro and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-12 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethics, or the systematized set of inquiries and responses to the question "what should I do?" has infused the history of human narrative for more than two centuries. Academicians and journalists in Spain and abroad have recently fastened on an emerging cluster of peninsular writers who, they argue, pertain to a discernible literary generation, provisionally referred to as Generación X. This book studies Levinas, ethics, and these contemporary Spanish writers who trace the temporal movement of alterity through narrative.
Download or read book Democratic Spain written by Richard Gillespie and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By focusing on the relationship between external relations and domestic policy, Democratic Spain makes an important contribution to the literature on democratization, as well as showing how Spanish foreign policy evolved between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s. While the book is focused on Spain, its revisionist view of democratic transitions is of more general relevance. Democratization is seen as an integral process involving related though not simultaneous changes in domestic policy and external relations.
Download or read book Spanish Society After Franco written by S. Mangen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-08-14 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanish Society After Franco investigates the origins of collective social welfare from the early nineteenth century, to set the context for an analysis of contemporary social policy from the perspective of economic and political trends since the transition of democracy in the mid-1970s. The review of policy evolution is complemented by an examination of the critical impact of social change, particularly the decline of the power of the church, regional devolution, the gender dimension and social exclusion.
Download or read book The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond written by Kevin Ingram and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-06-22 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the essays in this collection attest, the study of Converso and Morisco phenomena is not only important for those scholars focused on Spanish society and culture, but for academics everywhere interested in the issues of identity, Otherness, nationalism, religious intolerance and the challenges of modernity.
Download or read book The Best of All Possible Islands written by Richard Maddox and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-07-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses the world's fair of 1992 to spotlight changes in the political cultures of Spain and Europe.
