Spain: The Root and the Flower : An Interpretation of Spain and the Spanish People

Rating:
Summary: a very detrimental BOOK!!
Review: A very detrimental book. Amazingly wrong point of view.
To say that "the Spaniards spring from an Afro-Semitic race" is just a wrong start.
To say that the Arabs were in Spain for about 800 years...is not to have any idea about the history of Spain!!. In reality, the Iberians could have been today's Basques, incoming from the Georgia plateau, as of today no one is certain about the origins of the Iberians. The Basque were never touch by the conquest of the Arabs, nor the Galicians, nor the Cantabrians. In Catatonia the Arabs were expel by the Franks by the year 977 (that is 220 years after their incursion in this region). Valencia was liberated by 1248. Only in Granada did the Arabs lived for around 800 years (most of them of Syrian descent, is that north Africa?) . Spain is a country of different ethnicity's, some with direct Celtic ancestry like the Asturs, Galicians and Cantabrians, some like the Catalans with Frankish descendants, and some, like Extremadura or Andalucia from Mediterranean past, and still some like the Basque, with an uncertain past, but a unique history, never subdue neither by Visigoths, nor Romans, nor Arabs.
I have a PHD from the University of Salamanca, and I could not disagree more with John A Crow. I found many inaccuracies in this book. If you would like to learn about the true history of Spain, or just learn about the life and culture of Spain be aware of this issue. Crow writes out of his personal opinion...A very dangerous thing to due. I could write a book about the US base in my opinion and I'm sure I would offend many people, and at the same time I would probably be inaccurate. Crow refuses facts over his own ideas. I could give you a list the inaccuracies (many of them!!) but I have nor space nor time.
Take a trip to Spain (south, north, east and west so as to appreciate the differences of the people and the culture and the history) and read some good books about the history of Medieval Spain (Joseph F. O'Callahan, B. Netanyahu, are good books), and learn the true history of this unique land.

Rating:
Summary: A Dude in Los Angeles
Review: As an undergraduate at Rutgers College, Rutgers University (1987), I was a Henry Rutgers Honors scholar and wrote a thesis entitled "Linguistic Conflict in Spain." This book was invaluable to me in my research to bridge pre-Civil War Spain and democracy's foothold in this Iberian constitutional monarchy post-Franco. It's excellent. Any Hispanophile needs this in their bibliotheque.

Rating:
Summary: To a reader from Corona, CA United States
Review: As an undergraduate at Rutgers College, Rutgers University (1987), I was a Henry Rutgers Honors scholar and wrote a thesis entitled "Linguistic Conflict in Spain." This book was invaluable to me in my research to bridge pre-Civil War Spain and democracy's foothold in this Iberian constitutional monarchy post-Franco. It's excellent. Any Hispanophile needs this in their bibliotheque.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Overview Of Spanish History
Review: If one is looking for a brief overview of Spanish history, art, and literature then this book might just be what is desired. While it does not go into great depth, it does provide the reader with an overall basis of beginnings of the Spanish peoples, the civilizations that invaded the Iberian pennisula (Visigoths, Romans, Moors), and describes each of the monarchs.

In addition, the author does provide an insight into the greater known artists of Spain and some of their more well-known works. He also explains the literary talent that Spain has contributed to the world.

The is a good, if not in depth, summary of the events leading up to the Spanish Civil War and what it meant politically to the country. The author covers a good deal of the Franco era, possibly because he was in the country during that time. Still, it provides the reader with a conceputalization of the period. I was a little disappointed that the author did not bring out the less valued parts of Franco's Spain. By reading this book one would think Franco was very nearly a saint. Still, I was thankful for the knowledge of international affairs during the Franco era, and America's reaction (or should I say non-reaction) to it.

The last chapter, "Spain Today", I feel is totally irrelevant. I would recommend not bothering to read it. This book was first written in 1963, and the last update to it was 1984/85. As the author describes "Spain Today" it is 20 years ago. A lot can, and does, happen in 20 years and I feel this chapter should either be updated or completely left out of the book. If one is reading this to educate themselves on current mores and values in Spain, this is not the chapter to gain that information. Because of the dated material in the final two chapters, which I feel are a waste of a reader's time, I felt I had to give this book 3 stars.

If one is looking for a book to provide a brief, easy to read history of Spain, including artists and authors, then this might be a worthy read. If one is looking for the modern day Spain, then this book is not of much use.

Rating:
Summary: To a reader from Corona, CA United States
Review: If you say that until this day NOBODY is sure of the origins of the Iberians, then how can you wholeheartedly dispute his claims. I think what he writes is just like every other history book, unless you were there you can't really know what is completely the truth. There are grains of truth and grains of personal opinion in every history book and historical opinion, including your post. Also, many books have been written that the Moors (and I don't say Arabs because the Moors were not Arabs) were in Spain for about 800 years. You can read how they were described by nearer contemporaries than us including Shakespeare's Othello. To dispute his claims is disputing many claims from many books.