Portugal Books

This book gives you a real idea of what life was like in early 20th century Spain. Barea is ruthless and unromantic in his descriptions, letting you know exactly how things worked in this dirty, gritty, cruel place and time. Don't doubt it, life really is better now than one hundred years ago. It's not a hollywood story, but you'll learn a lot, and the imagery is strong. One of my favourite books.

I first read Barea's long book in 1965 and enjoyed it immensely, as it captured a time and events with compelling immediacy. Remembering how engaged I was, I reread The Forging of a Rebel (skimming the section dealing with Barea's early childhood to get to the more exciting stuff) and found, having completely forgotten the book, that I was every bit as involved as when I read it almost four decades ago. It's a very personal account of Barea's life as it braids with the events of the time, from his work in a bank (and, later, at a patent office), through his stint in the Spanish army with duty in battle-torn Morocco, to the prelude and raging turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. His journalistic style makes for quick reading. It's hard to imagine any reader not be pulled through to the end.

This book is absolutely fantastic! It's small and concise while still being detailed enough for a short trip to Barcelona. It offers several suggestons for how to spend 1, 2 or 3 days. The guide walk is perfect for our upcoming cruise. I hesitated to buy a book like this for just one city, but it really does provide SO much more information than a general Spain book would. However, it does so without being too big (or too small) and includes a great fold-out map.

I highly recommend any book in this series. The guided Modernista walk will easily fill our day and provides structure to our wandering in Barcelona. It also features a guided walk of Las Ramblas and tons of other helpful information. Nice color without being too much fluff.

This was a great guide - if I was to do it again for the first trip to barcelona I would recommend this book. For your second trip there invest in one a little larger so it can go into more detail on everything you see, but that's all. This book is great.

Dr. Pelayo has more insight into this great author than practically anyone else on the planet. Recommended.

The book allowed me to understand the complexity of the plot in One Hundred Years of Solitude. It also provided me with enough historical background information for understanding the short stories within the book. My favorite, however, was the chapter on Love in the Time of Cholera. I fully recommend this book for the reader of Garcia Marquez who lacks the background knowledge on Latin American issues.

William W. Dunmire's book just published in October of 2004, Gardens of New Spain: How Mediterranean Plants and Foods Changed America, was much anticipated in the field of public history. Dunmire worked in the field of interpretation (writing and exhibiting scholarly data in an entertaining and educational format for the public) in various park sites and administrative positions for the National Park Service for over thirty years. He now teaches at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. This stimulating work was supported and promoted by such noted historians in the specialty area of New Spain as Dr. Felix Almaraz, Dr. Rosalind Rock, and Dr. James Ivy. UTSA historian and Associate Professor, Dr. Kolleen M. Guy, used this work "hot off the press" for her fall 04 graduate seminar in Food and Drink and reported that,

"This book is generally being well received by scholars of Latin American history and borderlands studies. The book definitely opens up new areas of research. I think that we should take public historians and the work that they do quite seriously." (personal e-mail reference)

Dunmire argued that it was "one agricultural society colliding with another (Spanish and native inhabitants) over the last 350 years that forever reshaped the land and the people of America." He restated this argument in other ways: "the proliferation of Old World Foods...ushering in the grandest blending in history of international cuisines," "...the illustrious plant way from Spain had provided the grandest migration of plants, agriculture, and foodstuff in all of human history, and "the one-time clash of cultures has softened into a blend of people and ideas...."

His approach and argument was one of the so-called new methods of historiography, a different perspective, a definite departure from: the Boltonians standpoint developed in the 1915s, Carlos Castenada's Catholic view of the 1930s and 40s, and Habig's and Weddle's positive Catholic, pro-Spanish emphasis in the 1960s. Surprisingly, Dunmire blended the colorful and narrative details of Bancroft's collection and concept of destiny with a naturalist's passion for relating interactions between men, plants, and animals. His emphasis on foods crisscrossing the globe and the motives and technology associated with food's global influence and production gave this book a unique flavor (no pun intended). Weber, Chipman (who Dunmire greatly credits for his support and input on this work), and Dunmire all agree that the reader should look at New World events from all the players' points of view. Here is a yummy, 360 degree perspective that is fascinating to ingest. The tables, maps, and illustrations are one of a kind, accurate, and easy to absorb. This is a book you'll want to have in your kitchen and in your scholarly library!

Ever wonder where the tomato you are eating or the lemon you are squeezing really came from? This book has the definitive answers in an easy to read and enlightening format. It is for foodies and gardeners everywhere but focuses on foods that are central to the Mediterranean diet. Cherries, peaches, squash, coffee and chocolate all feature prominently in this food guide. It is a stomach's point of view of the Spanish colonization of the Americas with plenty of information about the natives and the foods that they were meeting. Gardeners will love the detailed descriptions of native gardening and irrigation techniques from the elaborate Aztec chinampas or floating gardens to Hohokam irrigation techniques.

My favorite part is the description of Spanish and Aztec feasts during the mid-16th century. The viceroy's banquet, "Course after course featured an abundance of meats: roasted goat kids, baked hams, and chickens along with native rabbits and venison, doves, and quail (but no turkeys). Heads of hogs, calves, and deer paraded in grand presentation featuring a musical accompaniment with trumpets, wind instruments, guitars and dulcimers...Contrast this repast to the Aztec feast...That one too, highlighted meat courses, but the Aztec selection seems much lighter, almost dainty: lobsters, sardines, frogs, tadpoles, salamanders, small birds, turkeys, winged ants, and locusts (to say nothing of the sauced gophers)."

If you access history through your stomach or are interested in how native Americans in the desert Southwest managed to water their gardens; you will really enjoy this book.

The poems are approached and explored with different voices and forms, but they never feel like they are straying. This writing should not be missed. On a non-literary note, the wrap-around photo cover is an incredible match for what lies within. If you feel any of the "cultural" nuance of this picture, you will be touched by the words Luis Alberto Urrea has written.

I hate most poets, but I love out-of-whack word juxtapositioning and eerie language. This nugget of a book transported me into the movie "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez" as it might have been directed by Luis Bunuel -- starring Neal Cassidy, and with additional dialogue by Jorge Luis Borges.

This is the real stuff--a jewel of a book. After I read these lyrics, "I taste blood in my mouth." Will Kirkland has not only captured the words and rhythm of "cante," he has touched my heart.

This slim volume contains well-chosen and poetic quotations about flamenco as well as the poetry itself with translation. Most of the lyrics are 4 lines, relatively short lines so that the poetry must be clear and precise - nothing extraneous or wasted. An example:
When daylight comes
my griefs begin to grow;
only the shadows of darkest night
comfort my soul.
If haiku is the poetry of observation, observation of what is true (in a Buddhist sense), these poems are the poetry of passion - pleasurable and/or horrible. This is not a book simply for flamenco-philes; rather it is a book for all interested in passionate humanity.

"The Hidden Galleon" is a magnet that will draw readers through its wonderful historic "connect the events" content......this beautifully illustrated adventure is detailed with archival maps and drawings and pictures that brings the reader into a fascinating adventure of the last days of the Spanish warship La Galga to its final resting place in Maryland's Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.
Author John Amrhein takes the reader on his lifelong journey to prove that the wreck of La Galga in a terrible hurricane in September, 1750 included the descendants of Chincoteague Island's pony population that attracts tens of thousands of tourists yearly to Maryland.
As a native of Baltimore, Maryland and a high school US History teacher here in Virginia with 40 years of classroom experience, I found that the book was impossible to put down and a delight to read. In truth, it brought back wonderful memories of the pony pennings that I loved so much to see whenever we traveled to Maryland's eastern shore in the 1950s.

The Hidden Galleon brings the thrill of many years of treasure hunting right into your own living room and makes you want to continue reading as you participate in the progression of the hunt. The final conclusions are rewarding and exciting.

I am enjoying reading and wondering why he writes so simply. I am also reading poems by W.S. Merwin and they seem so different. I suppose it's personality, nationality, purpose that strike me as most explanatory of their styles. It might be interesting that as I read the Spanish poems in Horses in the Air and then looked at the English translation I found myself thinking that I would have chosen other words. I also dusted off selections of the essay Ariel by Rodo, (in Spanish). Thank you.

This is an extraordinary book of beautiful poems by one of the best literary translators working today. Cola Franzen's translations are as beautiful as the poems themselves.

Whether you are an afficionado of fine interior design, an art enthusiat, or someone that needs a bit of exotic beauty in his/her life, this book on fine Andalusian interiors and exteriors is for you. The photography is at once stunning and vivid. If you are looking for some unusual decorating ideas to spice up your own home, look into this book. Anyone who appreciates beautiful photography will enjoy the masterfully executed and colorful plates.

Beautiful interior and exterior pictures. Concise and informative text. Well represented properties throughout Andalusia and not concentrating on one specific location. A great complimentary book to Spanish Palaces and Villas. Hope the authors will follow up with the houses and palaces of Portugal.

In studying the history of the Jews of Spain, Historians have performed a glaring dis-service by being ignorant of the two traditions thriving in Spain. In Southern Spain was the Andalusian tradition of Maimonides, representing the traditions of the Geonim and going back to the oral law of Moses. In Northern Spain, was the assimilated tradition of Nachmanidese. Specifically, this book shows very clearly that the Northern tradition of Spain was in fact an adoption of the values of the surronding Christian environment. By attacking Maimonidese, Nachmanidese was in fact attacking the teachings of the Geonim and ultimately, the oral law of Moses.

In a often emotional and always beautifully written expose, Rabbi, Prof. Faur shows that the persecuted have often adopted the values of the persecutors. In this, the tradition of Northern Spain was typical. The real miracle is that Maimonidese and his disciples, in an extraordinary exception to the commpon laws of history, steadfastly rejected the values of their persecutors -- even if this estranged them from their Jewish brethern who did.

Ultimately, only Maimonidese and his tradition have something to say today. This tradition is both modern and ancient: modern in thought and ancient in origin.

Finally, a book that speaks the truth!!!!

I applaud Chacham Faur's insightful and educated view of the Jewish phenomena know as the Spanish forced conversions during the Inquisitional period.
As with all of Chacham Faur's writings the reader is automatically transported into a delightful dialogue with the writers advanced knowledge and eloquent writing skills. With this said, I am very much in agreement with his assessments regarding the converso phenomena.
I also want to point out that I really enjoyed the prologue to the book. It is well stated and motivates one to jump right in and start turning the pages for a delightful journey to Andalusian Jewry, of which the Converso's belong to.
The Converso is a Jewish person who must be acknowledged as fully Jewish no matter what. As our Sephardic Rabbi's have stated they must be welcomed back to the Jewish fold even until this day or in the future, without going through humiliating conversion rituals. That is how it was in Amsterdam and how it should be now. Amsterdam being a great model to follow, showing us how to treat our returning correligionist, with dignity and respect, and allowing our brothers and sisters an opportunity to be fully integrated into mainstream Judaism. In itself this the greatest mitwah we, as Jews, can perpetuate towards all who come back to the fold i.e., to love them back and help in their return in anyway that we can. As history has shown, our Tudesco brethren have always behaved despairingly towards the Sephardim, whether in writing or actions. In many ways they are not the ones we should turn to for help. As Andalusian Jews, we must look to our own, history has proved this to be the only way to fight interreligious rivalries.
That is why I recommend this book to any Andelusian Sephardim, because for one, knowlege is power. And secondly, Chacham Faur is a master at Talmudic tought and Maimodean philosophy. It is a must read for all Sephardim or Tudescos who wish to gain a better understanding of the complexities of being Jewish in austere circumstances.