A HISTORY OF SPAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22392, 13 October 1934, Page 4

A HISTORY OF SPAIN

"The History of Spain." Part I by Louis Bertrams (Academle Francalse); Tart II by Louis Bertrand and Sir Charles Petrle, Bart., M.A., F.R.HIst.S. The French translated by Warre B. Wells. With Maps. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. (£1 7s net.)

In this history of Spain from 711 to 1931 we have a very interesting general account of the progress of events m that most interesting country. The authors endeavour to be scrupulously accurate and fair, and they do certainly give the reader who wants no more than a good general knowledge of the course of events a book well worth reading. It is, indeed, a remarkable thing that up to the present no concise history of Spain has appeared • in, English, yet the relations between Spain and England were for a long time more than ordinarily close, and the one country influenced the other quite a lot. So "far we have trusted to the views of our English historians as expressed in connection with the events of our own Empire. There are many who," for the reasons given above, will welcome this volume. It is a' piece of work which represents the result of a number of years of careful reading and research. It is at once simple and profound; simple in that it tells a story quickly and in a straight-forward fashion; profound in that the reader gets the impression that the authors could, in more than one case, have enlarged their findings into a much bigger'book. The sections dealing with the expansion of the empire which took place when the seamen of Europe sailed away to the West, and the establishment of the absolute monarchy, whet the appetite for a more detailed account of the forces which inter-acted so much in those two to three hundred years. The steady and terrible decline, too, while well told and interesting, leaves in the mind a desire for more exact and detailed knowledge. Perhaps this is the highest praise that can be given to any that, that it whets tiie appetite. This one certainly does. G. H. J.