Focusing on literary texts produced from 2000 to 2009, Lorraine Ryan examines the imbrication between the preservation of Republican memory and the transformations of Spanish public space during the period from 1931 to 2005. Accordingly, Ryan analyzes the spatial empowerment and disempowerment of Republican memory and identity in Dulce Chacón s Cielos de barro, Ángeles López s Martina, la rosa número trece, Alberto Méndez s Los girasoles ciegos, Carlos Ruiz Zafón´s La sombra del viento, Emili Teixidor s Pan negro, Bernardo Atxaga s El hijo del acordeonista, and José María Merino s La sima.

Two are the starting points of this book. On the one hand, the use of Doña Marina/La Malinche as a symbol of the violation of the Americas by the Spanish conquerors as well as a metaphor of her treason to the Mexican people. On the other, the role of the translations of Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias in the creation and expansion of the Spanish Black Legend.

Ever a popular subject, the thwarted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada is studied here in detail. How Philip ll's fleet was, in a few short days, stopped from invading England and forced into full retreat is looked at in a new and fascinating way, With the help of battle plans and bird's eye views of the action Angus Konstam, a leading historian in the field, here considers many of the intriguing questions surrounding the campaign, Why did the Armada fail? Were the English really superior in ships and gunnery? And perhaps the most fascinating of all, what would have happened if the Spanish had succeeded?

In 1585, war between Spain and Elizabethan England was all but inevitable. Consequently, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster proposed a pre-emptive strike designed to paralyse Spain's economy by striking at the Spanish Main - the heart of her overseas empire. The Elizabethan "Sea Dog" Sir Francis Drake was selected to lead this all-important raid.

Just how did a dialect spoken by a handful of shepherds in Northern Spain become the world's second most spoken language, the official language of twenty-one countries on two continents, and the unofficial second language of the United States? Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, the husband-and-wife team who chronicled the history of the French language in The Story of French, now look at the roots and spread of modern Spanish. Full of surprises and honed in Nadeau and Barlow's trademark style, combining personal anecdote, reflections, and deep research...