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I bought this book in 2011 in the Basque Center in Boise, ID. And this is mostly the reason why I bought it. It gave it some respectability. Being published by Penguin was the second factor which decided me: it tends to be some kind of guarantee. The third factor is more stupid. On the cover it says: by the author of SALT and COD. Good, I told me, if the author has already written about salted cod (staple food of the Basques and other Atlantic communities), he must really know. Only later I discovered that it's two books, one about salt and another about cod, that he's written on many subjects. But, nevertheless, his knowledge of the Basqueland is quite good, even excellent.
I wasn't expecting really much from the book, to be honest. It was very likely that it'll be a laudatory book on the author’s adored Basques, given that there are some important stable communities in the Northwest of the USA, or the typical book which is more a journalistic report on anecdotes, taken locally with some nice chap, where the locals are all sweet and lovely. Admittedly, it was about history, but history is where myths are built, ergo a very dangerous thing.
At the end of the book, I must say that I am rather impressed. It has some mystic admiration of a brave race of stubborn people who have resisted for centuries invasion, while making money and being refined and cultivated, even if they play rude games involving brute force, etc. But the facts are quite correct, from what I more or less know, which is a mix of a Francoist indoctrination, plus reading works by nationalists, plus discussions with Basque friends of differing views. I would say that the author places himself in this middle ground which is difficult to live in Spain (you have to take sides, else you are on the other side, don’t ask me other from what!). The result is quite a good, although journalistic, description of the main milestones of Basque history.
Deserves special mention the issue of toponymy, always a difficult one. The author gets most of the names right, but has some hesitations. Thus, he is able to distinguish between the Basque way of writing Guernica (Gernika) and the Spanish way, which is the one commonly used by him and the one used for the famous Picasso painting. But then, why writing Muxika, instead of Mújica? There are a number of cases like this. On orthography now, it because very curious the mix of ‘z’ and ‘s’ due to the change in writing convention from the original one established by Sabino Arana (Basqueland is Euzkadi) to the one widely used today (Euskadi). The author, without much telling, uses the z when talking about Arana and the s in subsequent chapters.
Summarising, it is far from being the reference book, it is somehow feel-good, it is much about the four Sourthern provinces, even the three composing present day Euskadi, but it’s informative and rather neutral.
I wasn't expecting really much from the book, to be honest. It was very likely that it'll be a laudatory book on the author’s adored Basques, given that there are some important stable communities in the Northwest of the USA, or the typical book which is more a journalistic report on anecdotes, taken locally with some nice chap, where the locals are all sweet and lovely. Admittedly, it was about history, but history is where myths are built, ergo a very dangerous thing.
At the end of the book, I must say that I am rather impressed. It has some mystic admiration of a brave race of stubborn people who have resisted for centuries invasion, while making money and being refined and cultivated, even if they play rude games involving brute force, etc. But the facts are quite correct, from what I more or less know, which is a mix of a Francoist indoctrination, plus reading works by nationalists, plus discussions with Basque friends of differing views. I would say that the author places himself in this middle ground which is difficult to live in Spain (you have to take sides, else you are on the other side, don’t ask me other from what!). The result is quite a good, although journalistic, description of the main milestones of Basque history.
Deserves special mention the issue of toponymy, always a difficult one. The author gets most of the names right, but has some hesitations. Thus, he is able to distinguish between the Basque way of writing Guernica (Gernika) and the Spanish way, which is the one commonly used by him and the one used for the famous Picasso painting. But then, why writing Muxika, instead of Mújica? There are a number of cases like this. On orthography now, it because very curious the mix of ‘z’ and ‘s’ due to the change in writing convention from the original one established by Sabino Arana (Basqueland is Euzkadi) to the one widely used today (Euskadi). The author, without much telling, uses the z when talking about Arana and the s in subsequent chapters.
Summarising, it is far from being the reference book, it is somehow feel-good, it is much about the four Sourthern provinces, even the three composing present day Euskadi, but it’s informative and rather neutral.
