.JPG)
Some data for consideration (when I’m working as a guide my lectures are prepared and I give exact figures and dates but I won´t now. because if you are at a computer you have wikipedia or the Britannica for that and I really do not believe a country is made up of exact numbers-much the opposite):
Spain is roughly half a million sq. Km, numbers a population close to 45 million and stands between the eighth and eleventh position among the richest countries in the world depending on which aspect of economy you focus your view at. We float amidst two seas and an ocean and overlook a border between two continents (two worlds for many) and present, within an area that doesn’t make it even to the fiftieth country in the world, just about every kind of climate known in the planet, only declining polar arctic, desertic arid, tropical moonsoonic and the occurring in Tundra regions in north Europe and Asia (I can´t recall the term now).
The beginning of Spanish history as a more or less consistent entity could be estimated in times of the Roman empire (Hispania was how classic greeks and romans named this region, about 21 centuries ago) although even older cultures-Iberians, Celts, Phenicians and Tartessicans inhabited the area before that (a couple of theories-and roman texts by a classic historian, Plinius or Strabo if I remember right- place Atlantis close to the southwest shores of the peninsula). Many historical characters from the empire were born in Hispania (then a province of Rome): philosophers like Seneca, emperors like Theodosius, Hadrian or Trajanus, and military geniuses like Scipio.
In early medieval times most of what is today Spain found a semblance of unity under the crown of Visigoth kings, of Germanic ascendant, who had won over the also Germanic tribes of Suebi , Vandals and Alans. They didn’t represent a strong resistance when the muslims came.
In less than 30 years, starting in 711 they conquered almost the entire peninsula and became a flourishing caliphate which would gain political and religious independence from Damasco and stand as the most refined and rich territory in the western world at that time (Cordoba, capital city, had a population of more than half a million souls!), thanks to the cultural convergence of Muslim, Jews and Christians. Christian kingdoms would take seven centuries to conquest Spain back, a process that ended in 1492, just in time for Columbus to discover a new continent and set the basis for the greatest empire of the renaissance age.
I guess it is more or less from this point onward that Spain makes it to non Spanish (or especially non European) history text books, so I will not dwell much on the rest of the story: we amassed a huge number of colonized territories around the globe and had many lineage connections with other European monarchies, as well as a few popes (probably the most famous of them was Cesar Borgia, from Valencia in the east coast of Spain), and we lost those influences and lands throughout the following centuries, in a succession of bad political decisions, military conflicts and probably a fair share of bad luck which included being one of the countries occupied and taken by Napoleonic strategy prowess. Economical and political diminishment ensued, Spain falling behind the ranks of what is generally considered the first world, and modern times saw us going through our last totalitarian monarchies, a couple of republics poorly organised and worse managed (up to twelve different presidents in the span of less than thee years during the second Spanish Republic!), a civil war the aftermath of which still hangs in the air of our political and ideological consciences, and the oppression of a dictatorship that, if managed to keep us somewhat protected (some would say alienated) from the worst of the Great World War and succeeded, during its last years, in starting a process of economical rejuvenation, did not do much to make us become the “One, Great and Free” nation which Franco and his followers up to present times claimed we were. Democracy (in a transition to Parliamentary Monarchy, supported by a king for whom Franco planned an absolutist model) has brought and age of rebirth and led our steps back to the front line, creating a country rife in social changes and improvements, economically strong, culturally rich… Of course we trip sometimes, like a young child learning to walk, but we keep trying, we learn, we improve, sometimes we rest and consider, who knows the wonders that await in days to come.
Spain is roughly half a million sq. Km, numbers a population close to 45 million and stands between the eighth and eleventh position among the richest countries in the world depending on which aspect of economy you focus your view at. We float amidst two seas and an ocean and overlook a border between two continents (two worlds for many) and present, within an area that doesn’t make it even to the fiftieth country in the world, just about every kind of climate known in the planet, only declining polar arctic, desertic arid, tropical moonsoonic and the occurring in Tundra regions in north Europe and Asia (I can´t recall the term now).
The beginning of Spanish history as a more or less consistent entity could be estimated in times of the Roman empire (Hispania was how classic greeks and romans named this region, about 21 centuries ago) although even older cultures-Iberians, Celts, Phenicians and Tartessicans inhabited the area before that (a couple of theories-and roman texts by a classic historian, Plinius or Strabo if I remember right- place Atlantis close to the southwest shores of the peninsula). Many historical characters from the empire were born in Hispania (then a province of Rome): philosophers like Seneca, emperors like Theodosius, Hadrian or Trajanus, and military geniuses like Scipio.
In early medieval times most of what is today Spain found a semblance of unity under the crown of Visigoth kings, of Germanic ascendant, who had won over the also Germanic tribes of Suebi , Vandals and Alans. They didn’t represent a strong resistance when the muslims came.
In less than 30 years, starting in 711 they conquered almost the entire peninsula and became a flourishing caliphate which would gain political and religious independence from Damasco and stand as the most refined and rich territory in the western world at that time (Cordoba, capital city, had a population of more than half a million souls!), thanks to the cultural convergence of Muslim, Jews and Christians. Christian kingdoms would take seven centuries to conquest Spain back, a process that ended in 1492, just in time for Columbus to discover a new continent and set the basis for the greatest empire of the renaissance age.
I guess it is more or less from this point onward that Spain makes it to non Spanish (or especially non European) history text books, so I will not dwell much on the rest of the story: we amassed a huge number of colonized territories around the globe and had many lineage connections with other European monarchies, as well as a few popes (probably the most famous of them was Cesar Borgia, from Valencia in the east coast of Spain), and we lost those influences and lands throughout the following centuries, in a succession of bad political decisions, military conflicts and probably a fair share of bad luck which included being one of the countries occupied and taken by Napoleonic strategy prowess. Economical and political diminishment ensued, Spain falling behind the ranks of what is generally considered the first world, and modern times saw us going through our last totalitarian monarchies, a couple of republics poorly organised and worse managed (up to twelve different presidents in the span of less than thee years during the second Spanish Republic!), a civil war the aftermath of which still hangs in the air of our political and ideological consciences, and the oppression of a dictatorship that, if managed to keep us somewhat protected (some would say alienated) from the worst of the Great World War and succeeded, during its last years, in starting a process of economical rejuvenation, did not do much to make us become the “One, Great and Free” nation which Franco and his followers up to present times claimed we were. Democracy (in a transition to Parliamentary Monarchy, supported by a king for whom Franco planned an absolutist model) has brought and age of rebirth and led our steps back to the front line, creating a country rife in social changes and improvements, economically strong, culturally rich… Of course we trip sometimes, like a young child learning to walk, but we keep trying, we learn, we improve, sometimes we rest and consider, who knows the wonders that await in days to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment