The Ornament Of The World

Nick Lloyd

A revelatory journey into the Spanish Civil War's physical and visual legacies, investigating how conflict is memorialised, and obscured, today. Fifty years after Franco's death, and almost ninety since the Civil War began, the scars of violence still run deep in Spain. Nick Lloyd traces this legacy through a series of road trips. Travelling through Catalonia and Aragón, among...

Felipe Fernández-Armesto / Manuel Lucena Giraldo

"A richly researched account of the clever, industrious and deeply practical men who followed in the footsteps, often literally, of Columbus, Cortés, Pizarro, Núñez de Balboa and others."—Wall Street Journal The untold story of the engineering behind the empire, showing how imperial Spain built upon existing infrastructure and hierarchies of the Inca, Aztec, and more, to furth...

Pedro Lains / Leonor Freire Costa / Regina Grafe / Alfonso Herranz-Loncán / David Igual-Luis / Vicente Pinilla / Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar

This is a comprehensive long-run history of economic and political change in the Iberian Peninsula. Beginning with the development of the old medieval kingdoms, it goes on to explore two countries, Portugal and Spain, which during the early modern period possessed vast empires and played an essential role in the global economic and political developments. It traces how and why ...

Luke Stegemann

The miraculous story of Madrid--how a village became a great world city For centuries Madrid was an insignificant settlement on the central Iberian plateau. Under its Muslim rulers the town was fortified and enlarged, but even after the Reconquista it remained secondary to nearby Toledo. But Madrid's fortunes dramatically shifted in the sixteenth century, becoming the centre...

Helen Crisp / Jules Stewart

This is the tale of Western Europe's oldest continuously inhabited city, a 3,000-year history of war and seafaring, culture and commerce, liberalism and resistance. Helen Crisp and Jules Stewart offer a vibrant account of Cádiz past and present, from its ancient founding myths to its reinvention as a trendy tourist destination. They illuminate Cádiz's experiences under Roman an...

Michael. Reid

An incisive account of modern Spain, from the death of Franco to the Catalan referendum and beyond "Comprehensive and engaging."--Gideon Rachman, Financial Times 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...