One of the military campaigns that changed world history has been rescued from near oblivion by Albert D. McJoynt, editor of this classic work. The fall of Moorish Granada to Spain's Catholic rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, was a turning point in establishing the boundaries between Christendom and Islam in the West, boundaries which had been in conflict for nearly a millennium. It also allowed the royal couple to launch Columbus' voyage with its well-known impact on the course of human events.

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Whitshaw spends her life in an arid part of Spain trying to put together and understand several pieces of an unknown pre-Roman ancient civilization. Among the pieces of her most interesting puzzle are an ancient but apparently still functioning (in 1928) aquaduct with no discoverable destination, a castle built of multiple layers each from a different era, unusual ancient mining processes in the rich nearby mining fields, a very puzzling rectangular pool cut in the bottom of the Rio Tinto river, several different and very curious water sources one with an unknown "temple" somewhere out under a desert floor, and the fascinating villagers and local natives of a time when this area was very remote and inaccessable. This is one of my all-time favorite books as it gives not only some very real and mysterious puzzles for the mind to gnaw on but a strong flavor for the time and place Elena writes from. She also suggests other aquaducts scattered along the Rio Tinto river and describes how the area guarded by the castle was the entrance to one of the ancient world's richest mineral fields worked by humans and perhaps, well, something else which is too small and peculiar to be human and digs vertical shafts into mineral deposits unlike any later miners. She also searches for the ways that the ancients got the wealth of this vast mineral field out into the wider world. Truly a book full of food for thought.

This is a great little review of highlights in Barcelona. The coupons were accepted happily everywhere we presented them. The book will pay for itself, easily. It should, however, caution people against the muggers who seem to be thriving in the city. I was violently mugged less than a block from my hotel off of La Ramabla. Other similar stories were told by many others. Be cautious-day or night in Barcelona!

Visit Israel, Jordan, Spain, Italie, Nepal, USA, Canada, France...and a special Tours to Holy Land Christianity. http://www.travelnet.co.il

For years I have searched for a history like this of the Spanish Civil War. For anarchists, this is one of the most important moments of history to understand, as it was the only occurance of a mass, anarchist-led social revolution. Considering the overwhelming quantity of books and film documentaries on WWII, and the fact that Franco's military coup in Spain in 1936 and the world's response to it set the stage for the world war, the paucity of scholarly and popular works on the Spanish Civil War should be startling... if it wasn't so typical of the biases of American media and scholarship. The neglect of the Spanish Civil War, and, moreover, the Spanish Revolution that this war precipitated, is all the more tragic in light of the absolute repression of its memory in Spain during the Franco years. A contemporary anarchist from Spain told me that almost everything he learned about the revolution came from foreign sources. He was hardly aware that there had even been a revolution until he saw Ken Lasche's film "Land and Freedom"--an excellent British drama produced in the early 1990s. And this is someone who grew up AFTER Franco... and in Barcelona!--the city at the center of the revolution, a city which in anarchist mythology looms like Jerusalem to Jews and Christians. It is in light of this egregious deficit that one fully appreciates "Blood of Spain", Ronald Frazer's outstanding collection of oral histories that has preserved the dying memories of this fascinating period.

Frazer presents opinions and accounts of events from every side of the conflict. Frazer attempts to be unbiased in his presentation of the views of fascists side-by-side those of ultra-leftists--a helpful contrast to the histories written by anarchists, which are about the only accounts I have found of the collectives of Catalonia and Aragon. I imagine that most who have read this book were sympathizers of the revolutionaries and were, like I, eager to hear what life was like in revoltutionary Spain. I can't imagine this book disappointed them. The accounts of the rural collectives and of the collectization of industry in Barcelona and other cities are amoung the most vivid and moving that I have read. No one interested in this time and place--and I wish more people were!--should pass up this book.

By the way, there is a fanastic documentary called "The Spanish Civil War" that is very hard to come by, but which would be an excellent companion to this book. Although I have not confirmed it, the person who loaned me "Blood of Spain" (which I am happily buying at the time of writing this review) thought that Ronald Frazer produced the documentary as well. This would not surprise me, because, like the book, it is filled with interviews of participants, and it was produced around the same time the book was written... both done just in time: many of the interviewed probably died soon-after, and very few are still alive to be interviewed again. How much irredeemably poorer our collective memory would be without Frazer's preservation.

This is not a "travel book" in the usual sense -- you will not, for instance, find anything about where to stay or eat. Rather, this is an historical, cultural, and literary guide to Buenos Aires that will make your time there more interesting and worthwhile.

Progressing geographically through the city's most important streets, plazas, and neighborhoods, Wilson uses the observations of writers, artists, foreign visitors, politicians, academics, and others to give the reader a "feel" for both the city and its inhabitants. These observations are supplemented with just enough historical framework to provide context. Buenos Aires is a city filled with buildings, streets, and monuments that stir up a great deal of emotion in its inhabitants; what this book does is help to explain why these locations are so important and how they fit together -- geographically, historically, psychologically -- to make up the city.

This book was along with me during my recent trip to Buenos Aires and undoubtedly made my time there more satisfying. Its only real deficiency is a lack of good maps -- there is one, but it is very general and doesn't cover enough territory. Nonetheless, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone traveling to Buenos Aires.

I really got caught up in this novel. Set in the turbulent 1970's in Portugal, most of it takes place in a small coastal village, where strange people and strange things abound... Not as truly strange as Louis de Bernieres (sp?) -- this has more of a subtle dreamlike/fable quality that I really enjoyed.

A really good first novel. Looking forward to seeing more from Dearing.

Wonderful photos in great paper impressions. Extra quality at all levels. It is a photo book with some history and biology of the places it covers. Also, is a tutorial book in the fact that the author didn't hidden his secrets and fully described the aspects behind all his photos. Great book

A very complete information about Cartagena, if you read it before you travel to this city, when you are here you will know all about the city, the exploring places, restaurants, hotels, shopping, etc. It will be if you were been here before. If you will think to travel Cartagena and you want to know all about it, you will need to read this book before.

There is a little country by the Atlantic in the most south-western point of Europe that is known only by few around the world. I guess this must be the fate of all small countries. In the 80's this country was still suffering from a prior revolution and a face-turning into Europe's wealth and wisdom. Here comes one of the most influential chronicists of the time, Miguel Esteves Cardoso, aka MEC, a young journalist and politics philosophe that had just finished is studies in Manchester, the city of Tony Wilson and the Haçienda Club. He writes a weekly column in the most influential paper at the time and soon becomes noted by his wit and notable depiction of some curious aspects of the portuguese way-of-life. Some became instant classics, like 'Fruta' (Fruit) and 'Piropo' (Flirtatious Remark), which starts with «The life of every young man should be to read, to write and to run after girls.» There is always a delicious and sometimes astonishing new aspect of the portuguese thinking and acting described and dissected in pieces of prose that will remain as one of the most off-the-circuit sociological analyses of this beautiful country and its peculiar inhabitants.