The A To Z Of Spanish Culture

The author Pilar Ort' was born and bred in Spain. She grew up in a society trying to figure out how to adapt to its new found freedom and how best to join the rest of Europe. Having lived in London now for over twenty years (time flies!), Pilar has written this ""A to Z of Spanish Culture"" with plenty of perspective, a bit of nostalgia and above all, a desire to demystify a country that is still represented abroad by toros and flamenco. This light book about Spain is divided into different chapters, each headed by a Spanish word that opens up a whole aspect of Spanish culture: Spain's history, its society, traditions, art, gastronomy or language

Don't just see the sights—get to know the people. In the popular imagination Spain conjures up a picture of rapacious conquistadores, fiery flamenco dancers, and brilliant artists. All true enough but how closely does everyday life in modern Spain conform to these dramatic stereotypes? Culture Smart! Spain explores the complex human realities of contemporary Spanish life. It describes how Spain s history and geography have created both strongly felt regional differences and shared values and attitudes. It reveals what the Spaniards are like at home, and in business, how they socialize, and how to build lasting relationships with them. The better you understand the Spanish people, the more you will be enriched by your experience of this vital, warm, and varied country where the individual is important, and the enjoyment of life is paramount. Have a richer and more meaningful experience abroad through a better understanding of the local culture. Chapters on history, values, attitudes, and traditions will help you to better understand your hosts, while tips on etiquette and communicating will help you to navigate unfamiliar situations and avoid faux pas.

Momentous changes swept Spain in the fifteenth century. A royal marriage united Castile and Aragon, its two largest kingdoms. The last Muslim emirate on the Iberian Peninsula fell to Spanish Catholic armies. And conquests in the Americas were turning Spain into a great empire. Yet few in this period of flourishing Spanish power could define “Spain” concretely, or say with any confidence who were Spaniards and who were not. Speaking of Spain offers an analysis of the cultural and political forces that transformed Spain’s diverse peoples and polities into a unified nation. Antonio Feros traces evolving ideas of Spanish nationhood and Spanishness in the discourses of educated elites, who debated whether the union of Spain’s kingdoms created a single fatherland (patria) or whether Spain remained a dynastic monarchy comprised of separate nations. If a unified Spain was emerging, was it a pluralistic nation, or did “Spain” represent the imposition of the dominant Castilian culture over the rest? The presence of large communities of individuals with Muslim and Jewish ancestors and the colonization of the New World brought issues of race to the fore as well. A nascent civic concept of Spanish identity clashed with a racialist understanding that Spaniards were necessarily of pure blood and “white,” unlike converted Jews and Muslims, Amerindians, and Africans. Gradually Spaniards settled the most intractable of these disputes. By the time the liberal Constitution of Cádiz (1812) was ratified, consensus held that almost all people born in Spain’s territories, whatever their ethnicity, were Spanish.

Modern Spain is a revelation in this up-to-date overview. Stanton vibrantly describes the startling variety of landscape, people, and culture that make up Spain today. Included are a context chapter and others on religion, customs, media, cinema, literature, performing arts, and visual arts. Students of Spanish and a general audience will be rewarded with engrossing insights into what writer Ernest Hemingway called the very best country of all. Spain is a modern European nation, yet Spaniards are fiercely tied to their individual towns and regions—with their distinct social customs, dialects or languages, foods, landscape, and lifestyles—more than to a united country. Culture and Customs of Spain conveys the extremes, such as the hard-working Catalan contrasted to the leisurely paced Castilian, coexisting in first and third world conditions, and the love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church. Spain's institutions are described, and its contributions to the world—from unparalleled literature and cuisine to flamenco and filmmaker Pedro Almodovar—are celebrated. A chronology and glossary complement the text.

Chief Inspector Max Cámara hates bullfighting, but one afternoon he has to replace his boss, judging a festival corrida in Valencia. That night, to his surprise, he is back in the bullring, and what he finds on the blood-stained sand shocks the city to its core.

Publisher Description

This contribution to European historical literature provides a clear and dispassionate account of successive ecclesiastical-secular conflicts and controversies in Spain and deftly summarizes the diverse ideological and intellectual currents of the times.

The invasions of Guatemala -- Pedro de Alvarado's letters to Hernando Cortes, 1524 -- Other Spanish accounts -- Nahua accounts -- Maya accounts

This book is for those who feel the need to relate to what they see and hear around them every day in Spain. Not an encyclopedia or text book on Spanish culture, it presents 34 topics of interest in a readable way - giving an inside look into the country's politics, history, arts, traditions, cuisine and folklore.