Spain - Part 1

Mark R. Williams, "The Story of Spain: The dramatic history of Europe's most fascinating country", Chapter 1: In the Beginning Was Iberia....


I plan to start my reading with, "The Story of Spain, The dramatic history of Europe's most fascinating country," by Mark R. Williams. So far, Williams appears to be a terrific author. If you are not familiar with Spain and its history this book is a great place to start. The book begins by explaining the simplest things such as, Iberia is considered the entire Peninsula, which is current day Andorra, Spain, and Portugal. While many people already know this, it does not hurt to re-state facts such as these, and for those who are unfamiliar with Iberia it is a great starting point. I will go through each section chapter giving off notes, this way if you don't have the time to read the novel you can still gain some valuable insight into Spain's history and culture. As a note, I do recommend this book to anyone, I got it off of Amazon for very cheap maybe $5-$10.

Introduction:

Iberia is the area which occupies common day Spain (85%), Portugal, and Andorra which make up the remaining 15%; however, Andorra is a very small country (please see map above).Spain is the 3rd largest country in Europe next to Russia and France.

A good quote I liked, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" ~ George Santayana

Chapter 1:

Iberia has many archeological treasures such as, the Altamira Caves in which 15,000 year old paintings of Bulls and various animals were discovered. In addition, Gran Dolina has hominid fossil remains that date over 800,000 years old. Not to far away there are also fossil remains that date as old as 300,000 years old.

Spain's name has been altered a few times across the ages... Spania -> Hispania (during Roman rule) -> Espana (present day).

Cadiz, Spain was founded around 1100BC by the Phoenicians, who we later derived our alphabet from. Cadiz was a fishing capital and brought many foreigners by means of trade. These foreigners included Celts, Greeks, Tartessians, and Phoenicians. The Greeks came in larger numbers around 600 BC primarily for trading.

Later Carthaginians came to rule most of the Mediterranean coasts from Algarve to Valencia. In William's opinion, the best thing they ever did was bring the Romans into Spain to help fight off Hannibal.

Chapter 2 discusses Romans being present in Iberia. Stay tuned....