The Basque History Of The World

by Mark Kurlansky

Paperback, 2000

Status

Available

Call number

946.6

Publication

Vintage (2000), Edition: New Ed, 400 pages

Description

History. Nonfiction. HTML: "The singular remarkable fact about the Basques is that they still exist." Bestselling author Mark Kurlansky says. The Basque people truly believe they should live their own private country. This book includes their entire history, from their political and war involvement, to culinary taste, to economic and social life. Inhabiting the small corner where France meets Spain, the Basque speak their own language, Euskera. Evidence of their culture showed up as early as 218 BC, and now, with a 24 million population, their influence on our world has been all-pervasive. Listeners will be enthralled as Kurlansky delves into the roots of an intriguing population, and shows us why they continue to thrive..

User reviews

LibraryThing member richardderus
History is the beautiful, brightly lit foam on top of the annihilating tsunami of the unrecorded past. History books are the spectrographic analysis of the light glinting off that foam. Any attempt at making a book more than that is doomed to failure and tedium.

This is not a tedious or failed book.
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It's just...well...curiously insubstantial. I don't like the focus on the Great and the Good in place of the gestalt of the actions of the Basques. I know, I know, most people can't name their great-grandparents, still less find evidence of their obvious existence, and historians are limited to what documentary evidence exists. But Ignatius Loyola stalled me every time I tried to re-read this book. I hated that jerk when I was confirmed, and given the confirmation saint of St. Charles Borromeo, a major Jesuit figure. I am a flawed being, I admit it...I can't abide hagiography, and I fear Kurlansky's absence of harsh, vituperative judgments thundered down upon the founder of the Jesuits sat ill with me.

But the book is, overall, an attempt to do the extremely difficult: Show the unrecorded points of commonality that linked major events in history, ie the involvement of a people generally overlooked. I suspect the Basques like it that way. I don't know what the Basque majority's opinion was of this book, but I suspect it was well and truly mixed. He's drawing attention to us! Yay! Boo! And often from the same person, I'd bet.

Why such a mingy rating as 3.6 stars? Because...well, because it wasn't anywhere near as much fun to read as I expected it to be.

And Loyola, that rotten sleazebag.
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LibraryThing member rocketjk
This book surprised me in some ways. I was interested in it specifically because my wife and I visited French Basqueland two years back. The book was very well written and very engaging, but I was a bit surprised that it was more or less a straight history of the Basque people from around the
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Middle Ages to the present. By "straight history" I mean it was mostly a traditional political history, with less cultural information than I was expecting, less about the mythology and social history. Also, much of the book from the post-World War II period onward was a description of the repressive measures of the Franco regime and its predecessors and about the radical and violent ETA nationalist terrorist group. Although all of that is of course important and central to the modern Basque story, the book made it seem as if there was little else going on in the Basque areas of Spain and France but that. So I didn't really feel that I got a very good picture of the modern Basque people.

Nevertheless, as I said, I did enjoy the book and feel that I've learned a lot that's interesting about the Basque people, their history and their culture.

It was also interesting to me that the book intersection so strongly with two other books I've read recently, for the section on the middle ages through the Renaissance helped provided some interesting perspective on things I'd recently read about in The Medici. And the detailed chapter on the Spanish Civil War, in which the Basques played an important role, mainly on the Loyalist side, resonated with the novel on the conflict, Another Hill, that I read a month or so. Funny how you can get some interesting congruence that way without even realizing you're doing it.
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LibraryThing member drneutron
Parts of The Basque History of the World are fascinating - the discussion of Basque origins and language, social customs, recipes, and other insights. Other parts of the book are confusing and a little tedious - the late 19thand early- to mid-20th century history, for example. Kurlansky tends not
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to follow a strict chronology. Instead he brings in parallel streams of history that overlap, making the story with such unfamiliar names more difficult to follow. I'm a little uncertain how unbiased he is when it comes to discussing the conflict between the Spanish government and groups like ETA; I'd like to hear both sides before judging. In spite of this, the book is well worth reading.
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LibraryThing member MiaCulpa
Growing up, the Basques were a vague notion in the corner of my brain reserved for topics that I felt I should know more about. I knew about ETA, I knew that their language was like none other and I guessed they weren't on the winning side in the Spanish Civil War.

So, when a friend recommended "The
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Basque History of the World", I leapt upon the book. And found that the Basque have played a much bigger role in world history than I thought possible.

Kurlansky is obviously a fan of the Basque and write about them, their nation and their history uncritically, with the odd recipe thrown in for good luck.

This is a good read and a good introduction to the Basques and I came away considerably more au fait about the Basques, and found that my guess about their role in the Spanish Civil War was right.
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LibraryThing member AprilHamilton
This is a fascinating book about a mysterious people. The ancestral Basque homelands lie on the border between France and Spain, encompassing a bit of each country's territory. While the Basque are officially considered citizens of Spain, they consider themselves a separate group entirely. They are
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a mysterious group because anthropologists can't say exactly where they, or their native language, came from, only that both their physical traits and language have little in common with either the French or the Spanish. This book proffers a mixture of theory and recent scholarship to try and solve the mystery of the Basque: who are they, where did they come from, and how have they survived as a separate and unique people for so long? It's a very interesting read, and not at all dry or highly technical like many of these anthro-theory nonfiction books can be.
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LibraryThing member Lukerik
A fabulous book. I came to it knowing the Basques only as a linguistic curiosity and I now know they're one of the coolest peoples on the planet and that they discovered America.

No one's going to make any claims for Kurlansky being a great stylist, but he writes well and orders his material very
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well. What bumped this book up to a five was that it's the only one I've ever read that had a recipe for cat.
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LibraryThing member ljhliesl
This had less about the language than I wanted, but it was still an enjoyable listen: George Guidall, European history, marginalized people. It tied in well with Mark Kurlansky���s previous research on cod and salt (if not oysters). I didn���t know that Ignatius Loyola was Basque.

The
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language thing fascinates me. Not Indo-European! No known relatives! Adopts Spanish words but stubbornly clings to its own grammar! Though I grant that those few facts repeated over the length of a 300-page book might have grown tedious.
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LibraryThing member kidzdoc
The Basque Country, also known as Euskal Herria, consists of the four provinces of the Basque Autonomous Community (Euskadi) in northern Spain (Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Alava and Navarra) and three adjacent ones (Labourd, Basse Navarre and Soule) in southwestern France (Pays Basque). The Basque people
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are believed to be one of the oldest European cultures that are still in existence, and Euskera, the language spoken by the Basques, is the oldest surviving pre-Indo-European language in western Europe and has very little in common with Castilian Spanish or French. The Basque people, especially those in the Spanish portion of the region, have longed and fought fiercely for independence and, more importantly, self governance for centuries, using the Fueros, or regional civil laws, that were agreed upon nearly 500 years ago. The region is known for its cultural traditions including the sport of jai alai, the stunning beach resorts in San Sebastián and Biarritz that are popular tourist destinations, and its outstanding cuisine, particularly pintxos, chorizo and salt cod, which all originated there.

The American journalist Mark Kurlansky's fondness and knowledge of the Basque Region shines in this excellent book, which traces the history and traditions of Euskal Herria from its earliest known days to the end of the 20th century, including its major figures such as Ignacio de Loyola, the priest and theologian who founded the Jesuit religious order; Sabino Arana, the founder of Basque nationalism; and Bernardo Atxaga (Joseba Irazu Garmendia), the first Basque author to receive worldwide acclaim for his work, most notably [Obabakoak], a collection of short stories set in the fictional Basque village of Obaba. Kurlansky also describes the region's rich whaling and shipbuilding traditions, the 1937 bombing of the town of Guernica (Gernika) by German planes, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Basque separatist and terrorist group that has maintained its cease fire agreement with the Spanish government since 2010, and the foods that are unique to the region, including at least half a dozen recipes. The focus of the book is on the Spanish Basques, although he does dedicate one chapter to the Pays Basco, who are much more integrated into French government and society.

The Basque History of the World is a readable and entertaining look into this fascinating culture, which was a reasonable length at 400 pages. This was a perfect introduction to my upcoming first visit to the Basque Region, and I highly recommend it to anyone who plans to travel there or is interested in learning more about its people.
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LibraryThing member meggyweg
Meh. This book was a real slog to get through -- I only finished because I feel honor-bound to finish what I start. I'm not sure why I found it such a slog, though. I guess I just couldn't get interested in the topic, though by any estimation it's the kind of thing that OUGHT to interest me. And
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what's with all the recipes? But if you look at a list of Kurlansky's books it's clear he's very interested in food.

Regardless, I feel that my issues with the book were my own issues, and not the fault of the author's. I did enjoy his book on salt.

In other words, I guess...just don't pay any attention to this review?
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LibraryThing member SwitchKnitter
I'm very interested in learning something about the Basque people. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make it through this book. It's a little too obsequious for my tastes. Kurlansky spends way too much time gushing about how cool and wonderful the Basque are. I like a little less cheerleading in
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my history books, thanks...
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LibraryThing member ohernaes
Interesting how the Basque how preserved a distinct own culture for so long. I would guess at the cost of a lot of internal norms/pressure. Did not finish.
LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
I picked this off the charity shop shelf because it has a great cover. Only realised when I got it home that it's by the author of "Cod" which was one of the earliest (and best) of the books that cover whole epochs via the lens of a single subject. Enjoyed this one just as much - and learnt a lot,
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although you don't have to believe everything he writes. Quite a few reviewers found his writing boring but I read it in small chunks over several months and was always engaged.
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LibraryThing member xnfec
Points out just how much influence the Basques have had on the world because of their nature and where they live. Very good on the rise of ETA and Basque nationalism.
LibraryThing member quantumbutterfly
The Basque are one of the most enigmatic ethnic groups in Europe. Their culture and language have no known relative, and no one can say for certain what the true origin of the people is. While they have been physically isolated for most of their existence by living among hard to access mountains
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and valleys, they have not been set apart from the people around them since Roman times. From producing major historical figures like Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) and Miguel de Unamuno to being one of the most prosperous regions of Spain in recent history, Kurlansky shows how the Basque have been tied in to a great deal of Western history. Now perhaps better known because of ETA (and originally accused of the Madrid bombing in 2003), this book presents a good overview of the people and their seeming constant struggle to retain independence and autonomy despite larger cultures doing their best to overcome the people.
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LibraryThing member GoofyOcean110
Recipes are an interesting thing to listen to over audiobook; inevitably, they make me hungrier than when I read them in print. There were some really good ones in The Basque history of the world. The lack of measurements and inclusion qualitative description (e.g. "a beautiful" fish), as well as
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the laborious nature of many of the included Basque recipes immediately struck me as quite different from recipes in cookbooks I own and use - these all list how much of each ingredient, with unambiguous descriptions, if any.
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LibraryThing member MHelm1017
This book was entertainingly informative about a relatively obscure culture and region. However, the aspect that made the greatest impression on me was the description of Basque cuisine, which inspired me with a wish to try several dishes mentioned here.
LibraryThing member LynnB
The Basque people are interesting in their desire for nationalism without necessarily the desire for a "country" in the traditional sense of the word. This book is primarily a history of the Basque search for cultural independence. I found it a bit hard to follow as it isn't always chronological --
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I sometimes got confused by how different people fit into the story.

I enjoyed far more the descriptions of Basque life -- the cooking, the writing, the development of the language. The comments and views of contemporary Basque citizens put the history into a more interesting perspective.
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LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
I picked this off the charity shop shelf because it has a great cover. Only realised when I got it home that it's by the author of "Cod" which was one of the earliest (and best) of the books that cover whole epochs via the lens of a single subject. Enjoyed this one just as much - and learnt a lot,
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although you don't have to believe everything he writes. Quite a few reviewers found his writing boring but I read it in small chunks over several months and was always engaged.
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Awards

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1999

Physical description

7.8 inches

ISBN

0099284138 / 9780099284130
Page: 0.218 seconds