History : Spain & Portugal

In 1532, the fifty-four-year-old Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers, to the shores of Peru. Unknown to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers of Peru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor Atahualpa had defeated his brother Huascar. Pizarro and his men soon clashed with Atahualpa and a huge force of Inca warriors at the Battle of Cajamarca. Despite being outnumbered by more than two hundred to one, the Spaniards prevailed -- due largely to their horses, their steel armor and swords, and their tactic of surprise. They captured and imprisoned Atahualpa. Although the Inca emperor paid an enormous ransom in gold, the Spaniards executed him anyway. The following year, the Spaniards seized the Inca capital of Cuzco, completing their conquest of the largest native empire the New World has ever known. Peru was now a Spanish colony, and the conquistadors were wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. more...

Price: $16.95

A lively and concise introduction to the politics and national life of Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries, covering both cultural and political history and exploring the complicated questions of citizenship and national identity that characterized Spain's political life even into the 1970s. - ;This book provides a cultural history of Spanish politics from the civil war of 1833 to the Spanish adoption of the Euro in 2002, a period dominated for the most part by violent military interventions in the political process, a succession of weak, unstable, but repressive governments, and the ever-present threat of rebellion from below, and culminating in the victory and repressive dictatorship of General Franco. Using a wide range of sources, both textual and material, Mary Vincent focuses on the question of how ordinary people came to identify themselves both as citizens and as Spaniards throughout this turbulent period. She argues that a weak state rather than a weak sense of nation was the key to Spain's problematic development and that this is the key to explaining both the persistence of political violence and the strength of regional nationalism in modern Spain. But, as Vincent shows, from the 1970s, with modernization of the state and the introduction of democratic politics, all Spaniards - including Catalans and Basques - enthusiastically adopted an additional identity, that of Europeans. And, while questions over the territorial unity of the Spanish state have still not been wholly resolved, nevertheless the political choices facing Spaniards today are very similar to those of other western European nations - and Spanish singularity appears, at. last, to be consigned to the past. - more...

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Acts of Giving examines issues surrounding donation-the giving of property, particularly landed property-in northern Spain during the tenth century. Exploring the place of giving within a broad complex of social and economic concerns, Wendy Davies highlights the centrality of Spain to some of the core themes of medieval European history. - ;Acts of Giving examines the issues surrounding donation - the giving of property, usually landed property - in northern 'Christian' Spain in the tenth century, when written texts became very plentiful, allowing us to glimpse the working of local society. Wendy Davies explores who gives and who receives; what is given; reasons for giving; and the place of giving within the complex of social and economic relationships in society as a whole. People gave land for all kinds of reasons - because they were forced to do so, to meet debts or pay fines; because they wanted to gain material benefits in life, or to secure support in the short term or in old age. Giving pro anima, for the sake of the soul, was relatively limited; and gifts were made to lay. persons as well as to the church. Family interests were strongly sustained across the tenth century and did not dwindle; family land was split and re-assembled, not fragmented. The gender and status of donors are key themes, along with commemoration: more men than women took steps to memorialize, in. contrast to some parts of western Europe, and more aristocrats than peasants, which is less of a contrast. Donation as a type of transaction is also examined, as well as the insights into status afforded by the language and form of the records. Buying and selling, giving and receiving continued in the tenth-century as it had for centuries. However this period saw the volume of peasant donation to the church increasing enormously. It was this which set the conditions for substantial social and. economic change. - ;...it is most encouraging to find that an experienced and thoughtful expe more...

Price: $99.00

This book looks at the social, political and cultural history concerning the anarchist revolution during the Spanish Civil War. more...

Price: $150.00

In this book, Faber assesses the long-term impact of the Spanish Civil War on Hispanic Studies as an academic field in the United States and Great Britain. Combining institutional history with biography, the book gives a compelling account of the dilemmas that the war posed for four Hispanists who turned their love of Spain into their life's work. more...

Price: $80.00