Spain's position on Europe's south-western corner has exposed it to cultural, political and actual winds that blow from all quadrants. Africa is a mere nine miles to the south across the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean connects it to the civilizational currents of Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians, Byzantines and to the Arabic lands of the near east and the Maghreb. The Pyrenees anchors it to Western Europe, with the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastal paths on either side permitting species, invaders, cultures, trade and trends to flow both north and south.
Hordes from the Russian steppes were amongst the first to arrive from the north. They would be followed by everything from Visigoths to Napoleonic armies and the first 20th-century tourists in their cars, planes and caravans. Where Romans and medieval Spaniards saw the world's western edge at Finisterre, circular winds and currents actually linked it to the American continent. That is what allowed Columbus to 'discover' the Americas, and Spain to conquer and colonize much of it.
As a result, Spain has been one of Europe's great pivots. At times, like a weathercock, its direction has been dictated by its unique exposure to external forces. At other times, it has grasped control of the elements, shaping not just its own political and cultural destiny, but also that of Europe, as well as parts of North Africa and much of the Americas.
Cultural mixing has provided Spain a sort of hybrid vigor revealing itself in everything from architecture, art and agriculture to philosophy or bullfighting. Conversely, when it has tried to deny the inevitable and attempted to isolate itself, it has required a superhuman effort to fashion a so-called "pure" national identity.
In A Brief History of Spain, Giles Tremlett argues that that lack of a homogenous identity is in fact Spain's defining trait - from prehistoric times to today.
About the Author: Giles Tremlett is a prize-winning historian, author and journalist based in Madrid, Spain. He has lived in and written extensively about Spain. He is Fellow of the Cañada Blanch Centre at the London School of Economics and Contributing Editor at the Guardian . He previously wrote for the Economist magazine. He is the author of Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country's Hidden Past: Catherine of Aragon: which was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week shortlisted for the H.W. Fisher First Biography prize; and Isabella of Castile, which won the prestigious Elizabeth Longford Historical Biography Prize in 2018; and The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War, which will be out in 2021. His books have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Dutch and Serbian.
