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Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country's Hidden Past
by: Giles Tremlett

List Price: £8.99

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780571221684
ISBN: 0571221688
Label: Faber and Faber
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: March 15, 2007
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Studio: Faber and Faber
Sales Rank: 1966

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Editorial Review:

Oldie:
'It is written so powerfully and grippingly that it guarantees being read long into the night.'

Irish Times:
'[A] superb travelogue.'

BBC History Magazine:
'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Spain.'

Times Literary Supplement:
'perceptive, affectionate, amusing and critical ... excellent.'

Literary Review:
'reveals Tremlett's considerable talents ... an enjoyable, informative and remarkably balanced account of Spanish politics and society today.'

Sunday Times:
'a book of remarkable scope ... the author’s enthusiasm and his determination to capture this contemporary Spanish moment ... succeeds brilliantly.'

Product Description:
The appearance - sixty years after that war ended - of mass graves containing victims of Franco's death squads has finally broken what Spaniards call 'the pact of forgetting'. At this charged moment, Giles Tremlett embarked on a journey around Spain - and through Spanish history. Tremlett's journey was also an attempt to make sense of his personal experience of the Spanish. Why do they dislike authority figures, but are cowed by a doctor's white coat? How had women embraced feminism without men noticing? What binds gypsies, jails and flamenco? Why do the Spanish go to plastic surgeons, donate their organs, visit brothels or take cocaine more than other Europeans?

Synopsis:
The appearance - sixty years after that war ended - of mass graves containing victims of Franco's death squads has finally broken what Spaniards call 'the pact of forgetting'. At this charged moment, Giles Tremlett embarked on a journey around Spain - and through Spanish history. Tremlett's journey was also an attempt to make sense of his personal experience of the Spanish. Why do they dislike authority figures, but are cowed by a doctor's white coat? How had women embraced feminism without men noticing? What binds gypsies, jails and flamenco? Why do the Spanish go to plastic surgeons, donate their organs, visit brothels or take cocaine more than other Europeans?

About the Author:
Giles Tremlett is the Guardian's correspondent. He has lived in, and written extensively about, Spain almost continuously since graduating from Oxford University twenty years ago.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A bit disjointed for me
I felt like I was reading a series of articles (well that's what Tremlett does for his day job!) rather than a book, so I never really got into it. I tried a couple of times, but I have to say I never finished the book - at about the 1/2 way mark I used it to raise my reading lamp and that's where it remains.

Rating:

- An affectionate look at Spain....
An in-depth and thoroughly researched examination of this intriguing country. This is an extremely readable account of the history, the people, the languages and the culture that have gone into the making of the Spain of today. Although from the title this looks like a travel book it is far more than that. Giles Tremlett devotes a large part of the book (and rightly so) to the Civil War and its aftermath and how the Spanish have adopted a "pact of forgetting". But other chapters are equally interesting and informative (such as ETA and Basque separatism, the Catalan language, Galician culture) The chapter on Islamist terrorism and Aznar's response reads like a thriller......

This is an affectionate look at Spain but he doesn't ... Read More:

Rating:

- Disappointingly simplistic
I'm an English Guardian reader who lives in Barcelona, and as such, I was looking forward to Guardian correspondent Giles Tremlett's essays on the 'hidden past' of Spain. Unfortunately, that's just a clever subtitle which belies the true content of this collection of essays. In fact, hardly any of the book includes revelatory journalism or reporting... the vast majority of the work consists of not much more than the collected thoughts of a chap travelling the country.

That said, his views on Benidorm (surprisingly positive) amused me.

There's no way that this book will have much to offer anyone who has spent more than about six months in Spain. That said, it could make good reading for someone preparing themselves to move ... Read More:

Rating:

- A bit disappointing....
I received this as a present from a friend who knows my love of Spain. I was delighted as I wanted to learn more about the Franco era, the reticence of Spanish to talk about the dictator and his legacy for the modern Spain.

However, I really struggled to read this book through to the end, parts of it were very well-written but I found the majority of it extremely 'random'. The author jumped around too much for me and there was no real 'flow'.

It's one saving grace for me was the chapter on Flamenco which I thoroughly enjoyed. I would be reluctant to read anything by Mr Tremlett in the future, his style of writing is just not for me.

Rating:

- Changes several preconceptions about Spain and the Spanish
About 75,000 retired British people move permanently to Spain each year and there are roughly 300,000 already living in Spain, mainly on the costas. They've moved to obtain a better standard of living, to enjoy more sun and less stress, or to get away from ever-encroaching Big Brother government. A fair proportion of them have not bothered to learn anything about the history and culture of Spain and, sadly, the vast majority have failed to learn even the basics of the Spanish language. Whether you're thinking of moving to Spain or simply want to spend a holiday there, this book is a fascinating introduction to the country's "hidden past," as the sub-title suggests.

Spaniards generally still believe it is their absolute right - even their ... Read More:

Books : Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country's Hidden Past