Condensing more than three thousand years of history into just over three hundred pages of text is a daunting task. That William and Carla Phillips have written a book that highlights the important moments in Spain's long and troubled history, provides insightful reflections on la longue durée of Spanish history, and does so without ignoring that history's complexities and contradictions is a remarkable achievement indeed. Written in a clear and engaging manner, the Phillips bring to this book their mastery of the topic. They also bring to Spain's history insights, understanding, and an empathy for their subject that are to be truly commended. This is far more than just a short summation: the authors interpret, comment, and throw new light on topics that, although they have been well mined and examined in the past, can be seen now in a new, clearer, and different way. They do this by incorporating the most recent historiography available on diverse topics and by a common-sense approach that is quite persuasive and delightful.
Although their own fields of expertise focus on the late Middle Ages and the early modern period (with a strong emphasis on economic and social history), it is clear that they have done their work (and done it well) for other periods and avoided the usual trap of emphasizing what one knows to the detriment of other areas. Their discussion of Spain's recent history, to give just one example, is luminous in its clarity and tempered approach to issues that are still divisive in Spanish historiography. For example, one should note that their analysis of the events leading to the Civil War (1936-39), the war itself, and its aftermath is a judicious balancing of the different historiographical interpretations available. The same can also be said for their analysis of Spain's transition to democracy: the authors combine their own sound opinions, garnered over years of living and researching in Spain, with an impeccable respect for the evidence. It works very well indeed.
Beginning with the prehistoric past, the first two chapters focus on the making of ethnic and linguistic diversity, the inexorable impact of Spain's rugged topography, the limitations of its fluvial networks, and the other geographical factors that led to the political and linguistic fragmentation of the peninsula. The settlement of different peoples in the peninsula and the coming of Islam in 711 carry the narrative through these two initial chapters. Centering their story, here and elsewhere throughout the book, on issues of diversity (religious, linguistic, etc.), migration, power, and culture, the Phillips provide a thread, without engaging in Whiggish teleologies, that links past and present in the evolution of Spain. They do this while also avoiding the essentializing that has characterized most of Spanish historiography and that has animated its most bitter conflicts. Chapter three, "Diversity in Medieval Spain," expands on these central themes. While authoritative in its discussion of social and economic history, the chapter does not neglect to provide a cogent political narrative or to offer abundant vignettes and asides, as for example, on slavery in the Caliphate of Cordoba, the story of the cult of St. James and the significance of the pilgrimage to his tomb in Compostela, and the successive invasions of Berbers (Almoravids and Almohads).
Chapters four and five trace the Spanish realms' growing importance in European affairs and Spain's role as the first global empire in western history. In these two chapters, the Phillips range widely from discussions of the wool trade (one of their fields of research) and Columbus' voyages (they wrote a magnificent biography of Columbus), to a broad grasp of political developments, here distilled to their most important components. Nonetheless, their broad sweep of history does not mean ignoring those small details that make their narrative come alive. They briefly mention, for example, that the monk Andrés de Urdaneta "solved the puzzle of the return route across the Pacific from Asia to New Spain," and the very important economic and geopolitical consequences of such a discovery; or that Don Carlos, the mentally disturbed presumptive heir to Philip II, engaged in "excesses of food and drink...and slept on bags of ice to cool off."
The rest of the book (almost half of it in fact) focuses on modern Spain, that is, on the three-hundred-year period from the coming of the French Bourbon dynasty to Zapatero's socialist government in present day Spain. Carefully presented, meticulously researched, filled with interesting details and asides, these chapters begin by tracing the acceptance, as well as opposition and rejection to, of French culture and French administrative practices during the eighteenth century. The Napoleonic interlude was followed in the nineteenth century by the growing division between liberals and conservatives, republicans and two competing monarchist factions, and Catholics and anti-clerical groups. The Phillips provide as clear and economical a description of the turbulent nineteenth century and its endless military coups as is presently available for the period in much longer monographs. While tracing the slow modernization and industrialization of Spain's economy, they are not reluctant to offer their own point of view on institutional developments and individuals. Their lapidary description of Isabel II (1833-68) is a very good example: "vain, sensual, capricious, and foolish, she might have been a disaster for Spain in the days when monarchs held real power. As it was, in the modern world of the nineteenth century, she was a disaster mainly for the institution of monarchy itself" (217).
As Spain transitioned into the twentieth century after the disastrous and humiliating conclusion to the Spanish-American War and the loss of its colonies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, the Phillips turn to the cultural contributions of the "generation of 98" and the remarkable ability of some Spanish intellectuals for self-criticism. What follows, offered in clear detail, is the rise of Miguel Primo de Rivera's military dictatorship with its Fascist underpinnings; the rise of anarchism, socialism, labor unions, and radical politics; the short-lived Republican interlude; and the horrors of the Civil War, its tragic denouement, and Franco's "authoritarian regime." This section, concluding with the demise of Francoist institutions, the restoration of the Bourbon constitutional monarchy, and the present- day democracy is discussed in a clear (a word that may serve as the theme for the book) and fairly detailed fashion, combining an account of what happens with authorial interventions that enrich the discussion. This is the case throughout these later chapters and in most of the book (even if one may disagree with the number of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 or other small details here and there), and it is a brilliant accomplishment. While including all the necessary basic information about Spain's history, A Concise History also offers the kind of interpretative structure that allows the reader to think critically about the country's long history. It also allows and challenges the reader to reflect on Spain's errors, trials, tribulations, achievements, and, above all, dignity. It is a dignity and empathy for their metier that the Phillips have instilled so clearly in this book and in the discipline of history by their exemplary and enduring work.