Portugal Books

I am looking to invest in property in Portugal and this book is proving to be really useful. It provides excellent guidance on all sorts of aspects from choosing a location for your Portuguese home to working and setting up a business.

It gives good guidance on the legal and financial aspects of the purchase, including mortgage, which can be somewhat difficult in a foreign country. Also additional information on tax and other important legal considerations. It goes much further, with sections on renovating, letting and selling, a bit too early for me but good to be able to read about it.

I would say there is only one weak point in this book, the advice on learning the language. I speak Portuguese and my recommendations would be quite different. This said, the book directs readers to specialist booksellers where they can see for themselves and choose the best suited course to their needs.

The strength of this book is that it provides a detailed overview of Contemporary Spain in modern context.

Obtaining a copy of this book saves busy people time in finding specific information regarding the legal framework of the Spanish state and institutions, political parties, media, regional subsidiarity, economy, environment, education, social welfare and even law and order.

If you then find you have the time and the need for greater depth, viewing the indispensable list of books for further reading, as suggested by Professor Ross at the back, will provide you with ample choice of information sources.

Ideal for busy people, pressed university or college students on busy overloaded courses, and anyone with an interest in learning more about the way Spain is run.

Great looking stores, but wish the shops could be more 'Barcelona' or 'Spanish' in flavour. Otherwise what's there to differentiate it from all other books in the series?

This book gives an excellent overview of many aspects of Spain, in chapters entitled Context (geographic setting, languages spoken, etc.), Religion, Customs, Media, Cinema, Literature, Performing Arts, and Visual Arts. Particular attention is given to the changes in these respects that have taken place during the years of societal transition from 1975 and onward. It should thus not be thought of as a traveling guide. Each chapter is followed by a list of references documenting the stuff presented: none goes beyond the year 1999 so the book has obviously been in the editing process several years before appearing. But among the references there are many tips of quality internet sites for those interested to pursue a given topic at greater depth.
As one who has visited Spain many times I recognize much of what is written here as to the point. I sense no tilting to any one side when it comes to presenting controversial topics -and these abound in Spain. If I were a student of Spanish language and/or history, or a retiree contemplating to settle in Spain, I would want to own this book. The drawback is the ridiculous price asked for a 206-page book with only 25 b/w pictures. For this, I detract one star.
(Note that the "Handbook of Spanish popular culture" by the same author is virtually the same book, the main difference being that in this older version there is a separate chapter, Ch. 1, entitled Languages, which is of interest if you are specially looking for a non-technical overview of this. In the 2002 version language is taking a back seat with only a few pages devoted to it within the "Context" chapter 1.)

Spain's Golden Age is one of the great historical paradoxes. At the beginning of the Golden Age, Spain had a prosperous Empire that stretched from the Phillipines in the East, to the Americas and southern Italy and the Flanders in Europe. Her military and economic might reigned supreme. Yet by the end of this century, Spain's power was in rapid decline. The benefits of Empire slipped through Spain's hands like so many grains of sand.

At the same time that Spain's political and economic power were in decline, a Golden Age of Spanish culture was also taking place. The Golden Age saw the rise of such prominent Spanish writers as the poets Miguel de Quevedo and Luis Gongora and the playwrites, Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca. This is also the era of great Spanish painter Diego Velazquez.

So how do you examine an era of rich cultural achievements and simulataneous economic and political decline? The French Historian, Marcelin Defourneaux explores these contrasts by examining contemprary accounts of Spanish life. We hear what travellers, playwrights and writers thought about every day life during the Golden Age. There are interesting sections on student life, military service, concepts of honor and popular religion. The final chapter on the role of the picaro in Spanish life is especially rich.

"Daily Life in Spain" is popular history. After reading this book, one develops an "impression" of what life must have been like during this century. This is not academic history and I would be surprised if it showed up in the bibliography of a serious work of Spanish history.

However, what I found enjoyable about the book is to see how much of Golden Age culture has survived through the centuries. It is these cultural "survivals" that unite contemporary Latin America with Spain. At times when Defourneaux was describing Seventeenth Century Spain, he could have been talking about current day rural Chihuahua. It is always interesting to see how the past shapes our current lives.

Edward Norton was an American diplomat who retired to Malaga, Spain in the 1930s. One of the very few Westerners to stay and observe the entire seven months' rule by the Spanish Anarchists and Communists, his diaries document the disastrous results of government by mob.
After Norton's death, his great nephew, William Harmon, inherited the diaries, and has used them and other family documents to tell the story of the starvation, arson, mass executions and destruction which ended only when General Franco's forces reached the city to re-establish order.
I think this is an excellent account of an eye witness to the Spanish Civil War.
In my own youth, American news reports pictured Franco as the villain. He was indeed a dictator, but he appears to have saved Malaga from the final total destruction of the city and from the execution of its remaining citizens planned by the anarchists.

This book, which I have burst upon quite unexpectedly, offered me a wealth of peaceful meditation and subtle joy. Maugham elaborates on his "spanish themes" with a casualness that easily wins the beholder. It can be called in some ways a travel book, recalling the chapters in which he more than alludes to the Spanish way of living, i.e. their eating habits, the look and feel of their cities and so on. Yet, Maugham also shares with his reader the fruits of his long research he conducted on Spaniards of the Golden Age. What I find the most pleasurable in these memoirs is the way Maugham reveals the fact behind the fiction regarding many issues, to name a few; Spanish literature and drama of the Golden Ages, the life and days (and the religious ferver, which he finds nonexistent of) El Greco. At any rate, this book is excellent reading, and reveals between the lines, the sometimes ironic, but never cynical humor of the artist.

We spent a week driving Andalucia and thought this would be a great book. The info included about the sites was interesting, but I had hoped for a lot more PRACTICAL information!! There was very little help about how to get from the main highways to the town center. The parking suggestions were very vague too. It wasn't nearly as helpful as I had hoped

As a student of history with a keen interest in England, the Netherlands and France, I found reference after reference to the Habsburgs. Philip II kept popping up. First he would be invading the Netherlands, then he would be married to Queen Mary, then he would be pursuing Elizabeth I, then he launched an armada.

Phillip II and the Tudor girls, Mary and Elizabeth were descendents of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, brother of the Black Prince, and grandfather of Henry V, who died in 1399 at the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. John's progeny descended through 1) Blanche of Lancaster (Henry V), 2) Isabel a Portuguese princess (Charles V, Phillip II, Mary Tudor) and 3) his mistress and third wife Katherine Swynford (Tudors).

The book begins with Charles V, known for sacking Rome in 1525. The German Habsburgs have intermarried with the royal family of Spain. Charles the V is the first Habsburg and Holy Roman Emperor to be raised in Spain, even though he was born in Ghent in the Netherlands--the birthplace of John of Gaunt his ancestor. From this time forward, Spain has a claim on the Netherlands.

Under Philip II, Charle V's son, some of the provinces of the Netherlands rebel, and gain a freedom of sorts though they are threatened by the Spanish occupiers of Catholic Flanders. In the background Philip marries four times, and Mary Tudor is one of his wives.

The book is informative, covers a dynamic period in the history of Europe and fills in many blanks for those interested in the history of the Netherlands and England. To it's credit, the Inquisition is treated without sensationalism. It is a synopsis covering an almost hundred year period. Iwould have liked less about the Spanish colonies overseas and a better index, but the bibliography is comprehensive.

Michelin is always a great source of reliable and comprehensive information. I like plenty of details so I can make my choices as I go, review my plans, envision and compare options in my mind.
Many guides in the market just give the author's picks or are excessively opinionated (e.g. Rough Guides). It is rare to find deep and well-informed text, a good understanding of the local culture, off-the-beatten track sites. Andalucia can't be visited in 1-2 days, and is incredibly rich and complex; seeing a few great places just off the hotel gives too little, considering how much is there.

This guide is very good. The text is perhaps too wordy in some places, but recreates well the landscape, traditional architecture and cultural vivacity of this fabulous region. It is not the best from Michelin, but is a great start.

I prefer this 1st edition to the second, where there was too much editing, especially cutting text. And, surprisingly, nothing new, less content and more pages! All in all, I'll keep my old and good first edition.