The Disinherited: Exile and the Making of Spanish Culture, 1492-1975

A provocative, brilliant, and groundbreaking historical reconsideration of the roots of Spanish culture.

We all carry in our heads a seductive picture of what Spain stands for: its music, painting, buildings, and history. But much of what we think of as Spanish culture is, in fact, the invention of a very specific group: the Spanish in exile.

Historian Henry Kamen creates a vivid portrait of a dysfunctional, violent country that, since the destruction of the last Muslim territories in Granada in 1492, has expelled wave after wave of its citizens in a brutal attempt to create religious and social conformity. Muslims, Jews, Protestants, liberals, Socialists, and Communists were all driven abroad at different times, and Spain's enormous contribution to European culture is largely a result of these rejected peoples--their creative response both to having no home and to the shock of encountering new worlds. A landmark work, The Disinherited describes with illuminating sympathy the travails of these unwanted societies and the enduring virtual culture they imagined often thousands of miles from their lost home.

Author: Henry Kamen
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 12/02/2008
Pages: 544
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.36lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.98w x 1.14d
ISBN: 9780060730871

About the Author
Kamen, Henry: -

Henry Kamen is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London and an emeritus professor of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Barcelona. He is the author of Empire: How Spain Became a Great Power, 1492-1763, as well as several other books on Spain. He divides his time between Barcelona and the United States.