Spain: What Everyone Needs to Know®

by William Chislett

What happens in Spain, among the euro zone's largest economies, matters. Its high unemployment (over 26%), burgeoning public debt, and banking crisis will be formative for the zone's future.

In What Everyone Needs to Know® , a timely addition to Oxford's acclaimed What Everyone Needs to Know®
series, veteran journalist William Chislett provides much-needed political and historical context for Spain's current economic and political predicament. Chislett recounts the country's fascinating and often turbulent history, beginning with the Muslim conquest in 711 and ending with the nation's deep economic crisis, sparked by the spectacular collapse of its real estate and construction sectors in 2010. He explains the country's transition from dictatorship to democracy and covers such issues as the creation of a welfare state, the influx of immigrants, internal strife from the separatist Catalan region, the effects of stringent austerity measures, the strengths and weaknesses of the economy, and how the country can create a more sustainable economic model for the future. In a concise, question-and-answer format that allows readers to quickly access areas of particular interest, the book addresses a wide range of questions, What was the legacy of the Muslim presence
between 711 and 1492? How did the Spanish Empire Arise? What were the causes of the 1936-39 Civil War? Why did the Socialists win a landslide victory in the 1982 election? What was the impact of European Economic Community membership? What is the violent Basque separatist group ETA? What caused the banking crisis? and more.

This engaging overview covers a wide sweep of Spanish history and helps readers understand Spain's place in the world today.

What Everyone Needs to Know ® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Genres: History, Spain, Politics

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Jose Moa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spain a country with 47 million people,505000 Skm and the fourth economy in the European Unión after Italy is poorly known outside Europe or known only by stereotipes as bullfight,flamenco,paella,siesta or by bad or negative things as the Black Legend,the Inquisition,the Spanish Flu,the Spanish Civil War etc... and as a paradigm of violence,intolerance,dogmatim,poverty and backwardness,to this long stablished picture have contributed some well known books written by foreigners that have traveled or be in Spain long time ago and this image have persisted along many years giving a distorted landscape of the today real Spain.

By all this was a necessity a book that in brief would give a concise accurate view of the real truth about Spain and this book hit the target.

The truth the real truth about Spain is that it is today a advanced democracy,in the vanguard in tha civil rights specially in gender and LGTBI,has a penal system human,based in the rehabilitation not in the revenge,has a very low criminality tass,has abolished the death penalty and the life in prison without the possibility of parole,has one of the worlds best healthcare system and one of the worlds largest life expectance in both sexes,has one of the worlds largest high speed railway networks and some large multinationals ,between them the well known Zara,one of the world largest art gallery and is the second country in the world after Italy in number of worlds heritage sites.

It is true that the long histhory of Spain has been violent and tortured,but in the last two centuries this histhory also has been a very hard strugle for reach the modernity fighting against powerful inner forces ,one of this forces,perhaps the strogest was the Catholic Church,and that the XIX century was a lost century but after many battles lost and hundreds of thousands of killed we finally have won the war of the modernity.

So, if you have some interés in the today real Spain ,not in the stereotiped and folclorik caricatures,this is a very recomended book.

I also think that Reading a book abot my country written by a contemporary foreigner willgive you a more evenly view of the lanscape,by this I also strongly recomend this book to all my compatriot.

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como siempre, si se busca un mínimo de objetividad en el análisis de la situación actual de España, lo más seguro es apostar por un autor inglés.
Se lee en un periquete y ofrece una visión de conjunto algo superficial (son solo 200 páginas) pero que ayuda a entender por qué estamos donde estamos.

[Nosemonkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compact, concise, and a great way to get up to speed on the context of modern Spanish politics. Must confess I was surprised (and a little disappointed) that the whole of Spanish history to the fall of Franco had been covered off by page 73 - but the emphasis here is helping the reader understand today's Spain (and tomorrow's), not yesterday's, and the changes of the last 40-odd years have been so profound as to make most of what went before important primarily as cultural background.

Nonetheless, this means I'm still looking for a good single volume history of Spain / the Iberian peninsula / the Spanish Empire up to the 20th century. Very open to recommendations - particularly interested in the reconquest at the moment, due to heading to Andalusia soon...

[Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another Oxford series, different in remit than the Very Short Introductions. I guess I had two large objections to the book and they are mostly presentational. The format consists of a series of chapters, the topics of which are chronologically ordered. Within the chapters, the narrative is organized as a set of prose answers a page or two long to a series of questions, some more tendentious than others. They often sound like Jeopardy answers. "I'll take What is the Valley of the Fallen for $200 Alex." Perhaps that's a minor cavil. I suppose the larger issue I have is that what everyone apparently needs to know about Spain, for most of the text, is how to frame the economic and social ups and downs of the post-Franco years in the context of the political struggle between the left and right. To be sure, these are important matters. But is _that_ really what everyone needs to know about Spain? One might eschew the usual tourist twaddle about corridas, flamenco, flan and tapas without restricting oneself solely to discussing the relative merits of Aznar and Rajoy and Zapatero. To be sure, they're interesting. I nerded out to the high political stuff and yet kept wondering about the mindset for which this is the most important stuff to know about Spain. For comparison's sake, it would be like attempting to summarize what is important about the U.S. by summarizing the electoral struggles between the two major parties over the last 30 years. Such an account would be interesting and yet think of all it would leave out: evolving social acceptance of sexual difference, racial issues moving from a simmer to a boil, the information transformation (for lack of a better label) of everyday life and a dozen more topics of interest. I guess I was expecting a little wider lens on social evolution and similar matters outside national electoral politics.

[Alper Guven · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I greatly admire William Chislett’s skill in recounting key developments in a detailed and chronological manner, many parts of the book feel unnecessarily drawn out, particularly when the author devotes lengthy chapters to minor anecdotes in Spain’s economic and political history. This approach can make the book difficult to follow for readers (especially foreigners like me) who lack prior knowledge of Spain’s political and economic context and approach the book as an introductory resource. In this sense, there seems to be a significant misalignment between the book’s title, 'Spain: What Everyone Needs to Know', and its actual content.

I picked up this book expecting a broad and accessible overview of the country’s historical trajectory. However, several chapters delve too deeply into specific topics, such as the personal backgrounds of politicians or the electoral rivalry between Aznar and Zapatero, while overlooking the broader social transitions, including Spain’s journey from dictatorship to democracy.

Although this gap between expectation and content may foreign readers like me somewhat disappointed, Chislett’s work remains admirable as a comprehensive chronological archive of Spain’s modern political and economic developments. It is particularly valuable for readers with a more advanced understanding of the country’s history who seek a deeper exploration of its political and economic evolution.

[Luisseff · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Spaniard is always interesting what foreign authors write about my country. I like the way they see things from a different angle. This book is a summary of the History of Spain mainly focused in the last 50 - 60 years from a political and economical point of view. I have to say that as a witness and subject of many of those years myself, many of their conclusions and reasoning are quite accurate. However, I have missed all the aspects about social and cultural life of the spanish society during those years which have been as interesting, or even more, than the economical or political ones. Maybe this could be another book.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, very readable. Whilst he acknowledges and explains why there's repetition at the outset, I found some wholesale copy-and-paste sentences quite annoying. And sometimes the data is presented in a way that's not clear.

For someone looking for a quick read about some of the big issues in Spain past and present, this is a good starting point for learning more. Despite typographical errors that should have been picked up in proofreading.

[William Sherlock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent briefing about modern Spain

This book is written by a journalist and is very readable. It is a mixture of history, economics and modern politics. While the scope is very big, it packs a lot in per page. It is getting a bit dated so, a revision to bring it up to date is due.

[Lghamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very thorough, but basically an Econ book. I enjoyed the historical stuff like the Civil War, WW2, Franco and his relationship with the royalty, the failed coup in 1982(!) But the political/economic chapters were atad scholastic for me. And running in the back of my head is: “This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.”

[Dr Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yep all I needed to understand modern Spain!

[Doa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very quick and concise history of Spain from 8th century to 2013, when the book was published. However detailed enough that I felt I had a strong understanding of the general history of the country. I felt that I learnt quite a lot about politics during and after Franco’s regime. The transition to democracy is an interesting period with the emergence of various political parties. One thing I didn’t know about before reading this book was about the Basque ETA group, and this is definitely a topic I would like to research and read up on more