Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy—its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility—hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into the shadows and on to the costs of ambivalence. ("My hands are of your colour; but I shame/To wear a heart so white"—Shakespeare's Macbeth.)

    Drawing expertly on five centuries of the cultural history of Europe and the Americas, Fuentes seeks to capture the spirit of the new, vibrant and enduring civilization (in the New World) that began in Spain.

    In a dramatic debate in 1550 with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Las Casas argued vehemently before a royal commission in Valladolid that the native inhabitants should be viewed as fellow human beings, artistically and mechanically adroit, and capable of learning when properly taught. In Defense of the Indians, Las Casas's classic treatise on the humanity of native peoples, had far-reaching implications for the policies adopted by both the Spanish Crown and the Church toward slavery in the New World. This carefully reasoned but emotionally charged defense addresses issues such as the concept of a just war, the relationships between differing races and cultures, the concept of colonialism, and the problem of racism. Written toward the end of an active career as "Protector of the Indians," the work stands as a summary of the teaching of Las Casas's life. Available in its entirety for the first time in paperback, with a new foreword by Martin E. Marty, In Defense of the Indians has proved to be an enduring work that speaks with relevance in the twentieth-first century. Skillfully translated from Latin by the Reverend Stafford Poole, it is an eloquent plea for human freedom that will appeal to scholars interested in the founding of the Americas and the development of the New World.

    It has proved essential to the direction which civilization in medieval Europe took. In this monumental, collected work, all major aspects of Islamic civilization in medieval Spain, including its influence on medieval Christianity, are dealt with in a comprehensive manner. This indispensable compendium is highly recommended to experts and to everyone interested in the legacy of Muslim Spain. It offers a variety of information and presents it in an encyclopedic fashion, combining a high level of scholarship and a wide range of subject that bring this period of Arab-Islamic history to life. It is the first study in any language to deal with all major aspects of Islamic civilization in medieval Spain.

    Comprehensive and authoritative, yet clear and concise, the dictionaries offer a full array of features, as well as wide-ranging coverage of current expressions. Long-standing favorites in hardcover, the dictionaries will continue to be standard references for years to come -- especially now that they are available in unabridged paperback editions. * More than 100,000 words, giving wide-ranging coverage of current terms and expressions * Detailed definitions so the user can understand and translate idiomatically * Extensive examples of usage, showing how translations of words can vary according to context * Verb tables, including irregular verbs * Cross-references from every verb to the appropriate verb table

    But Sauer's book is still the only work to provide not only a narrative of the voyages and of the colonizing ventures that followed them, but also an exploration of their impact on the peoples, the flora, and the fauna of the Americas.For Sauer, Columbus was simply "a Genoese of humble birth and small schooling," obstinate and increasingly paranoid. His obsession with gold and the rights he had secured brought the first Spanish venture overseas to the edge of failure. His successors were more competent administrators but continued the quest for riches, destroying the native ecology and the lifestyle of the indigenous peoples. Sauer attempts to show that native Americans had a balanced and highly productive livelihood that gave them abundance, leisure, and satisfaction. This book offers a unique view of the "cultural landscape" Columbus encountered and how it was transformed by the Europeans, establishing a pattern of conquest and settlement that was repeated all over Spanish America.

    She supported the Spanish Inquisition (which tortured and punished or had executed thousands of baptized Christians accused of practicing Judaism). She waged a successful war against Muslim Granada. And bent upon overseas expansion (she was after all the grand-niece of Prince Henry the Navigator), Isabel sponsored Christopher Columbus. Yet questions remain as to her actual role in these and other events. Why did she introduce the Inquisition? Why did she expel the Jews from Spain and the Muslims from Castile? Was it bigotry or piety or something else? And how aware was she of the injustices committed against New World peoples? For such a notable and controversial figure, much about Isabel has remained a mystery. Now, in Isabel the Queen, Peggy K. Liss proposes answers and provides both a sweeping biography of a Queen who had a profound impact on history, and a vivid portrait of a vanished, turbulent world. We see young Isabel as a poor relation at the corrupt court of her half-brother, Enrique IV (known as The Impotent), where she became a pawn in a civil war between the king and the great nobles. We learn how Isabel survived plots to disinherit her, how she won her way to succession, and why she secretly married Fernando, Prince of Aragon. And we witness the unprecedented ceremony in which Isabel assumed the crown alone, without Fernando, thereby paving the way for her daughter and other women to rule in their own right. Peggy Liss works through the fact and fiction, legend and opinion that have swirled around Isabel to reveal for the first time how her goals for Spain, her piety, and swelling power culminated in the remarkable year of 1492. (A variety of sources--documents, chronicles, literature, art, and architecture--reveal Isabel's attitudes towards religion, politics, and royal policy.) And finally, she shows us the older Isabel, who, having won the respect of Europe, suffered a series of family tragedies ruining her plans and her health and bringing her unprecedented reign to an end in 1504 with her death at the age of fifty-three. Based on years of research, travel, and reflection, Isabel the Queen brings to life the people, places, and events that surrounded one of history's most dynamic monarchs. In these pages we meet the mind of the ruler who left her country with an imperial legacy of power and glory, and a vision of conquest, that was to endure over the centuries.

    For the next 300 years, Spaniards ranged through the continent building forts, missions and farms, ranches and towns to reconstruct the Iberian world.

    

    But what if you can't forget the seventies? Elisa's troubled past comes back to her in the form of her ex-husband, Arnau, who needs her help to exonerate a former comrade. Elisa relives her Catholic childhood, her marriage to Arnau, her blind loyalty to the communist cause, her experiments in feminism, and her prison time to create a twentieth-century emotional history of the political Left in Spain. The women who faced so much adversity with Elisa weave their own perspectives and testimonies into hers, making this more than a novel: it's an important contribution to history that gives a voice to the silenced. Can Elisa ever leave the path history has carved out for her? Or is there no turning back? "Followers of contemporary Spanish history ... will now have the opportunity to understand some of its complex factors ... through Falcon's unswerving critical appraisal of Spanish politics. ... Knauss's agile and eloquent translation guarantees that the memory of clandestine resistance is no longer consigned to the past or to scholars." -from the introduction by Linda Gould Levine, PhD