Fire and Blood

Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico
 © 1973 T.R. Fehrenbach
675 pages

Fire and Blood is an epic history of Mexico, one that begins at the dawn of time and takes its time moving on.  Case in point: the 20th century is addressed in the last 10% of the book.   If nothing else, Fehrenbach should be lauded for a historical survey that focuses more on the past rather than the recently-expired present.  Fire and Blood is dauntingly comprehensive, taking no shortcuts; not only are the cultures of the Aztecs and Maya plumbed, but when the 16th century arrives Fehrenbach pauses to render a history of the Spanish empire, and readers are continually fed with changes on its evolution as they affect Mexico.  The arrival of the Spanish is a pivotal moment,  as they destroyed the old tribal order -- and imperial order, while easy to declare, was  harder to realize.  A dominant theme within the book is a search for Mexican identity, and it begins with the Spanish disruption.  Spanish authorities organized their new domain into a multitude of racial castes, with varying privileges and duties depending on whether one was a Spaniard born in Spain, a Spaniard born on the peninsula, or racially mixed in some way. Over time, and especially after the Spanish empire collapsed of its own corruption with Napoleonic assistance,  the mixed Spanish-and-Native population was dominant,  but even so Mexico still writhed trying to create social, economic, and political order for itself. Some wanted a republic, some a monarchy; some wanted to destroy the Church utterly, some to embrace it.  Struggles over land a la the brothers Gracchai also drove politics.  All this turmoil tended to produce autocratic leaders, not principled democrats,  and even once democracy had established itself one political party held sway.


Prose-wise, Fire and Blood is approachable history; the history itself, however, as the title indicates, is harsh, unforgiving, and often violent.  It took me several weeks to finish, with frequent breaks,  because the constant strife seemed relentless.  The content an style make this a valuable resource for those interested in learning about the roots of Mexican culture, however.

The Age of Napoleon

The Age of Napoleon
© 1975 will Durant
870 pages

Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me – or didn’t.  Will and Ariel Durant intended for Rousseau and Revolution to be the final volume in their epic history of Western Civilization, but grew bored waiting for the Grim Reaper to show up and claim them.  They decided, therefore, to scratch an itch, and devote a final volume to Europe in the age of Napoleon.  No individual has ever dominated a single volume in this fashion; even Charles the Fifth,  in The Reformation, would disappear  in chapters chronicling Persia and Arabia.   But Napoleon’s story encompasses not just France and England, but Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria,  and Russia.  The emperor does move backstage at times – in the chapters on  English poetry and novels, for instance – but he is never completely gone.  This final volume manages through Napoleon’s person to be just as comprehensive, but more tightly bound.

The Durants open with a more involved chronicle of the French revolution that concluded Rousseau and Revolution, this one making more obvious that the revolution was a slow but quickening crumbling of royal legitimacy that collapsed into the chaos of revolution after a few sudden shocks.  The king’s decision to attempt to escape France in fear of his life was one such shock, demonstrating that he was and remained an actor – not a prop.  From here, the Durants follow the Wars of the Coalitions, as the various nations of Eurrope fell in to and out of alliances with or against France, with the enmity between England and France being the only fixed point.  In 1807, with Napoleon  enjoying one of his greatest triumphs – the subjugation of Prussia, and the pretended friendship of Russia –  the Durants pause to cover  both French and English culture, including one hundred pages on English poetry alone.   They then alternate  sections on the culture of Germany, Russia, Italy, Iberia, etc and sections on the Napoleonic wars as they encompassed these regions.

Related to this volume’s unusual dominance by one person is the unusually heavy amount of military coverage here. The Durants typically dispatch wars in  a few sentences, concerned with them only as a background to  the social or political events that develop as a consequence.  There’s no getting away from battles and Napoleon, though, even considering the energy he poured into the political administration of France and Europe, and the long-term effects that energy would have.  The result is not a military history, however; there are no maps of battles.  Instead, the Durants treat the readers with their usual balance of literature, science, economics, etc.   there is a section on Jane Austen, for instance.  Another prominent author, Germaine de Staël,  maintained a long rivalry with Napoleon; she wrote a celebratory survey of German culture that pined for more amity between France and the Germans, and was present in Russia when Napoleon drove towards Moscow.  Beethoven, of course, merits a full section of his own.

Napoleon reliably described himself as a Son of the Revolution, even though his policies ended some revolutionary dreams.  His concordant with Rome, for instance,  re-established the Catholic Church in France, albeit in a corralled form. That was a far cry from the total secularization (or de-christianization, depending on the revolutionary), dreamed of by many – those who redrew the calendar and butchered France's artistic legacies,  those who in a just heaven will be consigned to  war forever with the whitewashing Puritans and the sculpture-smashing Wahhabis,   as well as others who would destroy art and heritage for ideology. Napoleon did apply much of the revolutionary, modernizing spirit to those parts of Europe he conquered  -- overwriting their ancient laws and traditions with constitutions from his own pen.   Although Napoleon kept faith with some of the past as convenient -- his concordant with Rome, for instance -- the Durants observe that in his army and state,  merit reigned, allowing even commoners to advance.

Although the Napoleonic wars have never been of great interest to me, the Durants' volume created an actual enthusiasm in me about the subject. As usual, I was impressed with their critical but forgiving evaluation of Napoleon, whom they regard as one of the singular men of history.  His reputation owes not just to his role in closing the violence of the revolution, or in his spectacular battles -- but pouring so much energy into his work, and being so successful in combat and in administration, that he transformed Europe,  planting seeds that would flourish throughout the 19th century. A century after his final defeat at Waterloo, an even greater war -- one spurred by changes Napoleon wrought -- would be harrowing the soil of France in blood, bones, and cannon once more.

And now, dear readers, what's next in Will Durant's Story of Civilization?

C'EST FINI! 

Cities of Gold

Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado
© 1992 Douglas Preston (Walter Nelson, Photographs)
480 pages

Sometimes, history has got to be pursued from the back of a horse.  Douglas Preston wasn't sure what took him to New Mexico -- he had a nice life in Manhattan before he abruptly decided to move to Santa Fe, to see the adobes washed in red sunlight --  but it took him further still, to the border of Arizona and Mexico.  There, along with a friend and a hired horse wrangler, he purposed to re-create the journey of Francisco  Vázquez de Coronado, the first Spainard to explore the Southwest.   They would discover the Four Corners as the Spanish did, on horseback -- carrying their own supplies,  following the water. Their mission -- to search what it might have been like to enter into these enormous spaces for the first time, and travel through them to the seven cities of Cibola.  Preston and company were warned against the pursuit; there was a very real chance such a journey would kill them. The desert is kind to no one, and Preston proposed to navigate through sheer wilderness, during the summer, amid a drought.  But fate is kind to fools, drunks, and Americans, and Preston's royal-flush team prospered through their wits, the kindness of strangers, and a mix of luck and grit.   The product is for me the best piece of travel writing I've yet read.

Along for the ride with Preston were a cantankerous neighbor of his, Walter, and a hired woodcutter who professed to be a horse wrangler.  Eusebius's only virtue for the reader proves to be his comic rage that reveals itself with every mesquite tree, barbed-wire fence, and thrown horse-shoe; the man is as experienced with horses as you or I. (His virtues for the party are practically nil, although his incompetence forced Walter and Doug to become jacks of all trades, which probably saved their lives after the fake-wrangler quit.)  The country they proposed to cross was desperately hostile. The voyage opened in a thick swath of mesquite trees, for instance, which turned a proposed one-day journey into four days of hacking, cussing, and chasing horses.   They crossed mountains so far off  the beaten track that the closest thing to a path was a cut made by the riders of the Pony Express.  Their journey takes them through the detritus of ruined civilizations and communities, the residents and their hopes long-dead -- both mysterious Anasazi remains, and the less mysterious array of abandoned silver boomtowns.   They encountered an array of interesting people: rattle-snaker trappers,  ranchers and cowboys, echoes of the dying Old West.  They also spent considerable time visiting with native Americans as they pass through  Zuni and Acoma reservations, learning some of their stories.  While the travelers were sometimes greeted with a shotgun, Doug and Walter certainly didn't look like tourists after the first few hundred miles of hard riding, and after explaining their mission, virtually everyone offered them hospitality with open arms and admiring eyes -- even from old ranchers who lived over a hundred miles from everybody else and did everything around their homesteads themselves.  (The only exception was a man who assured them that nobody named Coronado  came this way because the road hadn't been built until last year, and anyway that would have been trespassing.)

Cities of Gold expertly mixes adventure, history, photographs, and encounters with interesting people. As Doug and Walter pass through the landscape, so we learn the story of Coronado's exploration of the Southwest, and the story of the West in general: the trials of the Hopi, Apache, Zuni, and other people through the last two centuries, the triumphs and tribulations of traders, trappers, and gold-strikers;  the rise and fall of the cowboy. But there's more to the memoir than history, for both the Zuni and the cowboys have something to say about stewardship, of the husbandry of the land. They argue that the land has been much abused by outsiders who came in with great confidence and little knowledge, from the first ranches to the present Forestry Sevice.  Numerous citizens condemn the heavy-handedness of the Forestry Service's no-burn rule: the attempt to keep so much of the country in stasis is smothering it to death. The antelope herds that once flourished by eating young-growth forests, for instance, have dwindled as the old-growth cedars continue to expand, unchecked by fire.  As this journey was taken in 1989, I don't know if matters have improved. (What has not improved is Albuquerque traffic, which these two took horses through!)

While my prolonged fascination with the Southwest greased the skids here,  Cities of Gold  is most impressive.  The entire premise is awe-inspiring: this is a journey of a thousand miles on horseback, through thickets and quicksand, over mountains, across barren stretches of salt lakes and desert, through valleys and up mesas.  The people, as mentioned, are fascinating into themselves, both the living and the dead. I did not recognize the name Coronado before I began reading this book, and I learned enormous amounts about him, the native cultures, and the history of the West in general as I followed Doug and Walter through these magnificent, storied landscapes.

Rousseau and Revolution

Rousseau and Revolution
© 1957 Will and Ariel Durant
1092 pages

"...little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."

Edmund Burke, on the execution of Marie-Antoinette

In the tenth volume of Will Durant's  Story of Civilization, we now approach the latter half of the 18th century.  This is an age of titanic personalities, in every field.  Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia,  Samuel Johnson, Goethe, Bach, Schiller, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Rousseau, Voltaire -- what an age to be alive in!    For those unfamiliar with Durant's epochal series, his approach was a symphonic history that covered politics, economics, religion, architecture, music,  and literature. This particular volume opens with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's critique of reason, and -- amid all the politics -- examines the influence of the Romantic reaction on the arts and politics, ending with the storming of the Bastille.

This is an age of enormous change; the industrial revolution has spread beyond England, and its social consequences are brewing political revolution, especially in France. It is an age of war, like most ages; Russia, Austria, and Turkey bicker incessantly over the Black Sea, and western Europe sees several wars of succession. The most influential conflict, however,  is the Seven Years War. This saw most of Europe allied against Prussia and England, with from some instability on Russia's part. While the consequences in Europe were minimal,  this was the war that made England an superpower.  While everyone invaded (and was rebuffed by) Prussia, the English chased the French out of  both India and North America, creating an incredible global empire.  The Seven Years War would set the stage for the American War of Independence, removing as it did America's great opponent on the continent, and pressuring the British to make the colonies pay for themselves via taxation.

Although the Enlightenment has already provoked its reaction in the form of the Romantic movement in the arts, the 'age of reason' itself is not yet spent: it is only now beginning to enter some subjects, like economics.  Irreligion among the intellectual caste is de rigeur, although in the Protestant north, a few individuals (Boswell and Gibbon, for instance) get their subversive kicks by embracing Catholicism, if only temporarily.  Writers like Voltaire and Rousseau write constantly of novel approaches to old problems: Emile, for instance,  is ostensibly about the proper education of a human being. (A curious subject, given that the author sent his own children to an orphanage on their birth.)  In the decline that which had been sustaining public morality, the Church and faith in general, people tried to find new ways of justifying a moral life. Some, like the Marquis de Sade, didn't bother; they rejoiced in the fact that without God, all things were permissible. Much of the philosophy here, skeptical as it was of the old authority, also rebelled against reason; this was an age of Feeling, of sensibility -- hence a larger role here for literature, theater, and other arts in the history. Rousseau in particular is used to epitomize the beginning of the romantic age, for his writings condemned cities, civilization, and material learning as corruptive elements leading the inherently good hearts of men astray. (Burk's comment about sophisters and economists almost echoes him there.) His emphasis on humanistic morals, however, did not make him a traditionalist; he regarded the Church with suspicion because it threatened patriotism, being an institution which transcended nations. (This was an age of French literature, Italian opera, and German music -- every nation had something to be extremely proud of.)  Rousseau is most remembered for his political philosophy, which emphasized the 'will of the people'.  While sometimes cited as an inspiration for the American revolution, Rousseau did not believe that representative legislatures truly served the will of the people; that had to be effected through full democratic assemblies, and so genuine democracies must remain small.   Rousseau's emphasis on popular will  and republics put him at odds with Voltaire, who distrusted the populace and smiled upon enlightened kings. In general, Durant noted, the revolutions of the 19th century would follow Rousseau in politics and Voltaire in religion.

Rousseau and Revolution is, like  all of the books in Durant's series, formidable in its size but not in its writing. Durant, when he shows his personality, is utterly amiable. He is not as personal with his pen here as he was in The Age of Faith or The Reformation, but at times we witness the human being behind the pen, mindful that he is not writing of abstractions but of real people. He cautions the reader to never lose sight of the individual people whose lives were creating what we perceived as larger trends. Accordingly,  Durant writes not just of big things -- the epic novels, the epic personalities -- but of passing affections, like fashion and frivolities, the concerns of the flesh and blood creatures who then walked abroad. The Durants are gentle and humane authors, students of the very history they write, forgiving of their subjects' sins and excesses.  We'll see if that lasts throughout the French Revolution, for this book ends with the storming of the Bastille.

We move now to Napoleon and the end of civilization; or at least, the end of Will and Aerial Durant's Story thereof.

The Mexican Frontier

The Mexican Frontier 1821 - 1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico
©  1982 David Weber (University of New Mexico Press)
440 pages

In 1821, the people of Mexico declared their independence from Spain, recognizing that its Napoleonic straits meant that the mother empire had little future left, either at home or abroad.  Once the bid for independence had achieved its aims, the 'Mexican empire' spanned everything from Oregon down to South America.  Within thirty years, however, the United States had invaded Mexico, seized its capital, and forced the purchase of nearly forty percent of  its northern land.  Sneaky Americanses!  Wicked! Tricksy! False!

Well, not really.  It wasn't David Weber's intention, but having read this history of the Mexican frontier I'm considerably less condemnatory about the treaty of Guadalupe-Hildalgo. Not about the war, of course,  but the treaty itself seems to have only hastened the inevitable break-off of the great northern expanses from Mexico proper. Weber's history begins with  Mexican independence, then details the decline of institutions in the north as the contest for power in central Mexico continued; with a consequentially distinct frontier culture emerging, one that would constantly struggle for its own autonomy. Central to this history is understanding that young Mexico went through several constitutions in those early years,  constantly struggling to find its way. The breaking-away of the north from central Mexico was partially grounded in dispute over which constitution was legitimate: the more republican 1824 constitution, or the more authoritarian 1832 constitution imposed by the ilk of Santa Ana.

The fractures were only made possible by the precipitous decline of institutions in the north that would have tied states and territories like Texas, New Mexico, and the Californias more firmly to the government in Mexico City. The Franciscan missions, for instance, vanished with the Spanish -- in part because they were supported primarily by Spain, in part because many monks were Spaniards more faithful to their patria than their parish,  and in part because  Mexico wanted them out of the way. The missions had all the best land and labor, and if they could be dispatched with, then settlers could move in and hire the newly-emancipated Indians as workers.   Although Mexico officially secularized the clergy -- replaced the Franciscans with state-paid priests --  it did this so slowly that  the Church effectively disappeared in the frontier, and with it marriages and schools and other civil functions that the state was slow in restoring.

Another primary institutional failure was that of the military; because central Mexico's government was so unstable, its  army stayed close to home, either to stave off further intrigues or participate in some. The array of presidios that once guarded the northern frontier, with its independent attachments of cavalry,  was poorly maintained; the soldiers were so scantily paid and armed that not only did civilians have to raise their own militias to defend themselves against Apache raids, but when the militias were on the attack, the presidio cavalry sometimes raided the homes they were supposedly protecting.   In addition, the Mexican government's economic policies -- forcing trade goods in and out of the interior to circulate first through far-distant Vera Cruz -- made supplies rare and expensive. The sheer distances between the frontier and Mexico city added to the eroding attachments between a place like California and Mexico;  the ruling city seemed to be as far away and imperious as Spain. Little wonder that in the 1830s, Texas declared and fought for its independence;  California declared independence but accepted a compromise that allowed it more autonomy; and New Mexico rolled with rebellion several times.

Because of Mexico's instability,  the failure of institutional ties to form or hold, and the sheer distance between cities like  Santa Fe and Mexico City,  the northern expanse of Mexico was increasingly oriented along another axis: it looked east, to America, for cheap, ready, supplies, and  eager settlers and tradesmen. That commercial and cultural Americanization of Mexico's north made it increasingly America's west -- hence why I suspect now that the treaty which ended the United States' unjust invasion of Mexico only hastened the inevitable.  At the risk of condoning Polk, the American federal system finally allowed for the 'home rule' that the restive north fought for in the 1830s.  Had Mexico not struggled so much to create  a stable government early on, it might have held on to much of what the treaty lost -- but it is a difficult thing to create civil society from scratch, let alone when a nation is being constantly invaded by invading Comanche.

Related:
The Spanish Frontier in North America, David Weber

Spain in the Southwest

Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History
© 2013 John Kessell
480

In the early 1500s, the Spanish triumphed over the Aztecs and established a new Spain -- an empire forged out of the new world.  The equatorial tropics were only the beginning for Spain, however, as far above them loomed the entire continent of North America,  full of possibility.   The Spanish were lured north with simple and expressed motives: there was oro in them thar hills.  They were teased with stories of great cities to the north, rivaling even the splendor of now-perished Tenochtitlan. Their explorations would take them as deep into the interior as Kansas, and create a new province for colonial Spain: "New Mexico". The Spanish in the American Southwest is a history of the Spanish empire in the present-day states of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California, one which aims to tell the story of cultures in collision -- or collusion, as the Spanish often relied on alliances with locals, using chronic warfare between populations to make friends.   The province of New Mexico was named such in the hopes that it would prove as abundantly wealthy as Mexico,  but easy loot wasn't to be found. Angry natives were, though, and in abundance -- constantly resisting the dons and once driving them out of the region entirely. Still, the 'new Mexico' would remain a Spanish possession, maintained at great expense for the benefit of seemingly no one but the Church, until Napoleon invaded Spain and provided the opportunity for the New World to declare independence from the old.

As this is billed as a narrative history, what are some of the interesting threads?  Accounts of exploration always have an aura of fascination about them, although the Spanish were more disappointed with the constant lack of golden cities than mesmerized by the landscape.  In this history we see the Spanish grow from explorers to conquerors, and then -- as the generations pass -- men who belong more to New Mexico than they do Spain. They struggle constantly with the neighbors, whose kin they have effectively enslaved and alienated from the local gods -- and later on, the Spanish have to double down on the unproductive province because of other European powers. France is especially aggressive in Louisiana and Texas, and the Anglo-Americans keep eying the west with a certain avaricious glint. The main reason Spain held on to the Southwest prior to strategy becoming a factor, however, was religion, as the religious orders (Jesuits and Franciscans) assured the Crown that they had baptized many souls, people who will be killed by their neighbors should Spain leave.  Speaking of the friars,  don't think of them as gentle souls living lives of poverty and service to their fellow man. The friars in the southwest were potentates, who relied on the forced labor of the locals and who threatened even the Spanish military and civil powers in terms of authority. One early friar -- addled by the desert sun and encouraged by his distance from Italy -- claimed to have the full authority of the Pope in the New World, and another effectively ousted the first governor of New Mexico proper when he (Peralta, the Santa Fe avenue's namesake) challenged the cleric's rule.

More will follow on the Southwest this year, including a travel account based on Coronado's first foray into the region, a history of the region between Mexican independence and the American invasion;  and a modern history of the state of New Mexico itself.

Related:
The Spanish Frontier in North America, David Weber
West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, Claudio Sant. Covers the Russo-Spanish contest in California
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather.

The Armada

The Armada
© 1959 Garrett Mattingly
443 pages

In the late summer of 1588, all of Europe held its breath as an enormous Spanish fleet, consisting of a hundred and fifty vessels of varying sizes, set sail for the English channel. Their mission: to rendezvous with the elite troops of General Parma in the defeated Netherlands, and to transport them to England, there to revenge the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and depose Anne Boleyn’s daughter .    That invasion never happened. As is famously known, the Armada met English fire and northern winds, and a third of its number was lost utterly on the shores of Britain and Ireland.  It was for Elizabeth, constantly confronting intrigue from Catholics and Puritans alike, a glorious moment:  here, before all of Europe,   the wind and waves declared that she was the Dread Sovereign of all England.  The Armada is a storied history not just of the Spanish fleet’s doomed voyage into the channel, but how Spain came to launch such an expensive and unwieldy endeavor.

Much of the weight of The Armada gives the background information for the “English Enterprise”.  Europe is in the throes of the reformation, and rebellions against princes carry with them the fervor of holy wars.   France, who might oppose the sudden envelopment of England into the Spanish empire,  is struggling with its own civil war, and every one of the three contenders is a Henry.  The Netherlands have risen against their Spanish lords, with the military and fiscal support of Elizabeth – who is presumably more interested in having enemies of Spain at her doorstep rather than Spain itself, given the two powers’ mutual hostility.     There is a very good chance that Phillip could get away with styling himself the English king:   he’d already enjoyed the title as Queen Mary’s husband,  and Elizabeth reigns over a divided nation. Many of her subjects maintain faith with the Catholic church,  secretly or openly,  and several rebellions and conspiracies intending to restore a Catholic monarch to the throne have already erupted.  If their former king landed and called them to rise against a woman already declared illegitimate by the Church,   how easy would it be for them to bury their fears about civil war and declare for Phillip?

Fortunately for England’s men in arms, and their mothers, it never came to that.  The English engaged in a running battle with the Armada as it made its way towards the Channel; there was no epic showdown, but a series of smaller skirmishes, two of which – when combined with the storms of the Channel – did serious damage to the fleet. By the time they  neared the rendezvous, in fact ,the admirals in command had to view their stores of rotten food, ailing men, and badly leaking ships in the cold light of reality.  The Armada was no longer capable of breaking the Dutch blockade that would allow the Spanish to take on their army and transport it to Spain. It might not even make it home, if it continued to be harassed.  Part of the problem was that the Armada was so enormous and unwieldy.  Its ships were gathered together from across Spain’s domain, and many were Mediterranean galleys built for ramming that were out of place in a battle that involved more artillery than swashbuckling shipboard raids. Even in the age of standardized equipment and radio communications, the Allies required months of planning and stockpiling to prepare for D-Day.  Spain had a similar challenge, but its every piece of equipment might vary from casting to casting, and its barrels of food spoiled as quickly as they could be found.   The Spanish sailed in the hopes of a miracle, but they found none.  When news reached Phillip II, he wrote to the his bishops and could express only thanks that -- in the light of the storms -- more men were not lost.

I knew virtually nothing of the Armada except that it sailed, met a storm, and failed. Although in retrospect a brief review of the history of the period would have served me well as a reader  (particularly in regards to France, whom I seem to ignore utterly between 1453 and 1789) , the author's delivery is indeed novel-like. The personalities of the period, like the swaggering Drake, add to the tale's liveliness.  Although the wars of the day seem far removed from us now, the author's epilogue couldn't be more current: he cautions the reader that wars of ideologies are always the hardest to win.

Sister Queens

Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of  Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castille
480 pages
© 2011 Julia Fox

Virtually any reader of Tudor fiction is familiar with the sad story of Queen Catherine,  the lawful wife of Henry VIII who was not merely abandoned, but cruelly cut off from her own daughter Mary, after she refused to partake in the murder of her marriage to Henry.   Less known is the equally sad story of Catherine’s family, and particularly her sister Juana -- who was likewise placed under house imprisonment and defamed as a lunatic.   Sister Queens is a joint biography of Katherine and Juana which aims to plumb their full characters, however, not just the one aspect (“tragic wife”/ “tragic mad widow”) that  plucks the heartstrings of readers the most.  At times it wears a little heavy with all the details of court life -- dresses,  draperies, that sort of thing -- but  for those who know little about  Queen Katherine and her family,  Sister Queens is most accessible, and is a book which offers a look at the most influential family in late medieval Europe.

Ferdinand and Isabella are known to American schoolchildren as the patrons of Christopher Columbus’s foolhardy but accomplished voyage across the Atlantic, but in Europe they were the Most Catholic Monarchs, the pair who united Spain and reclaimed it for Christendom against the armies of the caliphs. (And, tragically, by expelling Jewish subjects.)  Their marriage was fruitful, producing five children: Isabella,  Juan, Juana, Catalina, and Maria.  Royal marriages were then the stuff of diplomatic alliances, and all four of the daughters would be married abroad.  Tragedy would visit the family again and and again, claiming Isabella, Juan, and several children -- a theme that continued throughout Juana and Catherine's lives.

Most readers are aware of the general trajectory of Catherine's doomed marriage to the swine-king Henry, of the series of tragic child-deaths and miscarriages that convinced him that their marriage was cursed. Catherine was not merely the King's consort, however, hanging about in the royal chambers and waiting for babies. Catherine's diplomatic role didn't end in marrying into the English dynasty. She served as Spain's primary ambassador,   attempting to keep English preferences aligned against France  Her influence would wane sharply, however, after Henry began wondering if perhaps he shouldn't have married his brother's widow after all.  Even there, Catherine proves herself a wily adversary, sending secret messages, defending herself in trial, and twisting even the Holy Roman Emperor's elbow for aide. It helped that  Emperor Charles was her nephew, the son of Juana.  Fox is somewhat less successful with Queen Juana, though not for lacking of trying; there's just so little evidence to go on about her life once she became a captive resident of Tordesillas.  Fox argues that Juana's histrionics were a form of manipulation -- aimed first at her husband Phillip, and then at her captors --  in the hopes of  effecting her own will. Her captivity was less a matter of illness than control, for after her mother's death Juana was the legitimate heir of the Castilian throne -- and through her name, her father and husband sought to rule  Fox argues that the people who lived with Juana, namely her daughter Catalina, and those who visited her or exchanged letters with her never remarked on any instability.  Only those who tried to control her -- Phillip and Ferdinand, and their agents -- encountered the desperate Juana, who would lash out in tantrums against them.

Unfortunately, there's so little information about the imprisoned Juana that I don't know if this book does too much for her.  Having already developed an appreciation for Queen Catherine's character through other biographies and novels, I enjoyed Sister Queens most as  look into the joined Spanish-Hapsburg dynasty that would create that pivotal character of the reformation, Charles V. (For more information, read Will Durant's The Reformation.  Charles V holds a commanding position throughout.)

La Florida

La Florida: Five Hundred Years of Hispanic Presence
©  2016 Viviana Díaz Balsera & Rachel A. May
312 pages

Florida, like many places in the United States, bears the name given to it by another culture.  The Spanish, setting first foot on the peninsula in the 'flowery season of Easter',  Florida Paschal,  named it after the flowers of the season. While the Spanish flag has long been removed from the heights of St. Augustine and Pensacola,  Spain's legacy lives on in a new form, its language having made a dramatic return to the land through Cuban and Puerto Rican immigration.  La Florida collects historical articles written on the Spanish heritage and continuing presence in Florida, spanning from Jared Milanich's attempt to fix the actual landing sight of Ponce de Leon, to from Susan Eckstein'ss  analysis of changing Cuban political sympathies. (Few outside of Tampa itself probably appreciate the long history that Cuban immigration has played in that city -- concentrating there long before the Castro coup.)   In between readers are treated to the turbulent history old Spanish Florida,  articles on distinctive aspects of Florida in the South (its role as a haven for escaping slaves, for instance), and Florida's re-flowering in the 20th century.  This then is not a straightforward history, but a collection of very different pieces rooted in Florida's Spanish heritage -- a heritage abandoned, spurned, and then revived.    Midway, for instance, we find an article on the Spanish craze in the United States which manifests itself in Mission Revival architecture across the southwest and old Spanish gulf.   For a student interested in colonial Spain, here are bits of history not only forgotten by standard texts (the 1812 invasion of Florida by Georgia volunteers), but those forgotten by everyone, like the  time Amelia Island was taken over by a pirate and declared a republic.

Related:
Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States

The Other War of 1812

The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War
© 2007 James Cusick
398 pages

If the War of 1812 rings any bells for most Americans, they may associate it with the creation of the Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem whose lyrics no one seems to know.  Those with a taste for history who look into it may regard it as the United States' unfortunate ensnarement in the Napoleonic Wars,   responding to the attacks on its trade from  both English and French quarters. The invasion of Canada hints that the Americans were not quite perfect innocents, and still more persuasive is the case of the other invasion.  Far to the south, another war with ties to the War of 1812 had already been brewing, and would continue to work out bloody chaos for several years thereafter. I refer, of course, to the Georgian invasion of Florida.

Prior to its final annexation into the American union in 1821, Florida exchanged hands several times between the Spanish and English.  It was, in 1811, a strange sort of colony. Its residents were Spanish subjects, but most of the occupants and even leadership were not Spanish themselves.  Some called themselves Anglo-Spainards, for they hailed from varying parts of the British isles and yet gave Spain their allegiance while they lived in Florida.  Many were free blacks -- some having escaped from Georgia, some manumitted under Spanish law for various reasons.  There were even Minorcans, previously brought in by the English to help rebuild Florida after so many Spanish residents left following the Seven Years War.    Spain, in 1811-1812, was in a bad way:   its king was lost to Napoleonic schemes, its legitimate regent besieged by the French at Cadiz.  Any moment all of Spain would be lost to Napoleon, and then where would little Florida be?

Georgians were asking the same question, but they knew the answer. Little Florida would cling to Great Britain's skirts; they would allow British warships to steam from Floridian ports, there to play hell on American shipping. As war loomed with the English, the thought of the English navy safe at harbor so close to the American coastline was enough to raise anyone's hackles. Spanish Florida was an enormous pain even in good years -- not only did it continue importing new slaves from Africa, but it maintained itself as a safe haven for escaped slaves from Georgia. Worse yet,  these escapees were armed after joining the Florida militia.  And then there were the Indians, who were constantly used as a threat by Spain against the Georgians whenever border disputes loomed.  Getting the Spanish out of Florida would be useful all around.

In today's America, Florida would have never stood a chance. In these early years of the Republic, however ,expansionism was still being reigned in by circumspection and the Constitution; as much as Madison might want to take Florida,   how could he declare war against Spain -- the colonies' first ally! -- and shake them down? It was neither right nor lawful, and no one would let him get away with it.  Instead, Madison encouraged a certain revolutionary war colonel named Mathews to investigate the state of things in Florida,  and find people who wanted a little regime change. If they happened to raise the flag of revolution, kick the dons out of St. Augustine, and raise the American flag, well...then, by golly, who was Madison to stand in their way?

Of course, things didn't quite work out that way. The Other War of 1812, heavy with details of diplomacy and brush combat, tells the story of how the revolution  died before it began, but was artificially resuscitated by a few hundred Georgians pretending to be Floridians with a hankering for Independence.  Because the ranking US Army officer in Georgia maintained that he could not invade Florida, only come to its defense after the local 'authorities' declared independence and requested aide,  the Patriots leading their war against the Spain had to make do on short rations. Their war was grim, 'war even unto the knife'. Part of this was desperation, part of it the misery of battle conditions. (July is not fighting weather in the sunny South.)   The Georgians also had a serious grudge with St. Augustine and Fernandina, those cities who stole their trade and bid their slaves run, and they were especially vicious when fighting the Creeks, Seminoles, and free blacks of whom they lived in fear.    Eventually, the war petered out, but  the author points to the amount of destruction a few Patriots raised as one of Spain's reasons for realizing Florida was a losing proposition.  The Americans were too close and too hungry to be held at bay long.

The Other War of 1812 is a good bit of history -- substantial reading, yet accessible.   The war itself is not a riveting affair, just swamp raids, plantation burnings, and a prolonged siege of St. Augustine. There are a couple of stirring episodes  -- a scouting party cut off for four weeks in hostile terrain, somehow holding its own despite being vastly outnumbered, for instance --  but the real star here is diplomacy. I don't mean commissioners arguing with each other, but rather the light this sheds on how complicated relations were between the Americans, Spanish, English, and native crimes.  The author provides some books for further readings, as he links this Patriot war in with several of the Creek and Seminole uprisings that would erupt in the 18-teens.  I'm now itching curiously, but there's so much ahead of Creek wars in my interest queue.

Further Reading:

• War of 1812, John K. Mahone. According to Cusick, this text  is singular in integrating the Patriot War, the War of 1812, and the Creek Wars together. 
• Britain and the American Frontier, James Wright
• Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands, Frank Owsley
• The Spanish Frontier in North America, David Weber

Florida Under Five Flags

Florida Under Five Flags
© 1945 Rembert Patrick
160 pages

Note: I read from the 1st edition. This cover is from the 5th edition,  which has been updated and presumably revised.

The State of Florida entered the Union in 1845; in 1945, presumably as a centennial celebration, Florida Under Five Flags was published to provide an outline history of the state, from its beginnings as a Spanish frontier post through to the 'present day'. It is a history which can be enjoyed in a single evening, and is amply illustrated with historical art depicting cities like St. Augustine and Jacksonville; photographs of street scenes and prominent personalities are also included.

Florida titular historical accomplishment is having been an object of contention between virtually every European power with an eye toward American colonization. (Fernandina Beach cheekily claims to be the city of eight flags.)  The Spanish arrived first, though Ponce de Leon perished amid his explorations. The French were the first to plant a settlement, though the Spanish bloodily drove them out and began establishing a fuller colony, one with several towns and a network of missions. While Florida was expensive for the Spanish to maintain, its forts were crucial in protecting access to Mexico and the rest of "New Spain". The English quickly took an interest in Florida, but despite capturing the city of St. Augustine, were unable to triumph over its fortress, the Castille de San Marcos. What eluded them in combat was won in treaties, however, and Spanish Florida became British-controlled West and East Florida -- governed from Pensacola and St. Augustine, respectively. Florida flourished under British rule, but would be ceded back to Spain following the American Revolution. Amid the turmoil of the Napoleonic years, Louisiana and Florida were both juggled by France and Spain, and the aggressive interest of the nearby United States made selling the land more feasible than defending it into the poorhouse.

Florida, having been depopulated virtually every time it switched hands, began attracting settlement from the Southern coast; the multitude of planters from Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas who took a part in creating a new American state meant that despite Florida's radically different climate, in culture it was part of the South, and would follow where the southern states led. That meant secession only twenty years after becoming formal members of the Union. Florida's ports were immediately targeted by the Union navy, falling before the war was even a year old, but Florida itself was spared most of the devestation of the conflict. Only a few minor skirmishes occured within the state, mostly over the control of salt-works. Florida was still subjected to Reconstruction, but plagued by corruption that set back genuine progress for decades. Florida soon recovered, and as railroads unified the state and linked it more firmly to the rest of the county, its cities began growing all the more. A once economically-sleepy peninsula home only to rude huts and subsistence agriculture had been transformed into a prosperous State, one which played an important role in the Spanish American war and which was poised to participate even more fully in American life.

I read this principally interested in colonial Florida. While it is only an outline history, the narrative is perfectly enjoyable as a story. I suspect parts of it would be rendered differently were it published in the modern era, particularly the author's mere mild condemnation of slavery. I didn't realize how long Florida took to become fully "settled"; the author writes that Florida's frontier wasn't closed until 1920. A book published so long ago is arguably irrelevant for understanding modern Florida, considering how radically it has changed in demographics, culture, and in its standing with the rest of the Union -- but as a survey of Florida's early history, it is perfectly enjoyable and helpful.

Original cover:

A scene from colonial St. Augustine.

A History of Saint Augustine, Florida

A History of Saint Augustine, Florida
© 1881 William Dewhurst
196 pages

St. Augustine is the oldest European city in North America, founded by the Spanish in 1565.  Sitting at the mouth of the St. John river in northern Florida, it originally served to help defend Spanish ships from mischievous English pirates.   Its history offers students a view at the turbulent story of Florida during the colonial period; first an object of fixation to Spain, France, and Great Britain,  and later on one to Spain, Great Britain, and the United States.   Although Dewhurst's A History of Saint Augustine, Florida is an older work, a product of the 19th century, modern readers will find its author's hatred of slavery and defense of native Seminoles, Creeks a refreshing departure from that century's usual conceits.   It combines colonial history with accounts both tedious and fascinating, and is largely more about colonial affairs using the city than about civic life.

 I didn't realize until reading this how little I have ever thought of historic Florida. During the American Revolution, for instance, it was technically an English possession, a colony even; but because England had acquired Florida from Spain so recently (1763,  a hair over ten years before), and because the initial governors scared all the Spanish away, England had to repopulate the peninsula with new settlers--  and not just English-types and Scots, but Greeks. These newcomers shared no history or notion of common struggle with the northern colonies, and so when thirteen of their neighbors became states, the Floridians ignored invitations to the Continental Congress.  Less is said about St. Augustine during the Civil War, for the city was  captured by the US Navy before the war was a year old. Those who despised  the thought of living under foreign rule left the city, leaving a few loyal Unionists and a larger population who didn't  care one way or another.  The author ends the book by saying that Jacksonville's railroad connection to St. Augustine will keep it popular as a health resort,  winter haven, and site of tourism.

This little introduction to St. Augustine has only confirmed my realization (in reading The Spanish Frontier in North America) that Florida's colonial history warrants more attention!  I will be visiting St. Augustine within a few month's time, so do not be surprised to see more histories of Florida and St. Augustine in the weeks to come...

West of the Revolution

West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776
© 2015 Claudio Saunt
288 pages

In 1776, the bid of thirteen colonies for independence wasn't the only interesting goings-on in North America.  From Alaska to Cuba, colonial and native powers were fighting, trading, exploring, and competing with one another. West of the Revolution begins with Russian forays into the Aleutian islands,  moves south to Calofornia, where Spain frantically attempted to create a safeguard after catching wind of the Russians,  and then takes readers across the Rockies and plains until the Mississippi is reached. There, we travel south to Cuba, which was not only a prospering sugar plantation but a potentially powerful trading partner of the Creek people in the Southeast.   Brief and full of interest,  West of the Revolution not only sheds light on what else was happening in 1776, but provides the context for future developments in American history --  the drive towards the Mississippi and the hunger for Florida.  There's also a rare look into Canada, or rather the Hudson Bay area and still later, a region that encompasses both Canadian and American states. A section on the Black Hills, known to Americans as the home of Mt. Rushmore,  makes plain their importance to the Sioux and other tribes: the Hills are an oasis of rain in a relatively dry region, and for generations a source of food and materials in lean periods.   I discovered this book via a podcast (Ben Franklin's World) and can pass on the recommendation,  no less for the information on Russian and Spanish colonization as for the tour of North America, this most diverse and extraordinary continent.

Timeless Mexico

Timeless Mexico
436 pages
© 1944 Hudson Strode

My knowledge of Mexico consists of a few events with a great many spaces in between: Aztecs, Cortes, independence, war with Texas, Pancho Villa, the PRI, and cartel warfare encapsulate my paltry knowledge. I read Timeless Mexico as a beginning effort to remedy that, knowing of course that a work published in 1944 would be severely dated. Hudson Strode's Timeless Mexico covers the country from prehistoric speculation until 1944, with an almost exclusive focus on politics.

Strode is obviously sympathetic to the Mexican people, or at least the peasantry, and often reflects the sentiment he quotes directly: all those who love Mexico must always have their hearts broken. It's easy to see why, because the narrative has one dictator after another -- sometimes elected, sometimes installed by a coup. (Santa Anna is like the Black Death, seemingly impossible to get rid of permanently.) Strode is obviously partial to some of them, hailing their best intentions; the other side's fellows with good intentions are of course wicked. We can't begrudge anyone for trying to improve their country, of course -- promoting schools, roads, hospitals, that sort of thing. I had no idea that revolutionary politics came so early to Mexico, or that its prescriptive nature was embraced so widely. I couldn't muster up a lot of love for any of the politicos here, what with their seizing property left and right and ordering people around. It's all well and good to build schools, but to force people to attend the government's schools exclusively, with no private or parochical institutions allowed to teach, is quite another. Still, the politics here are fundamentally agrarian, not communist; men like Lázaro Cárdenas were closer to the Gracchai brothers than Lenin. Their economic plans involved breaking up plantations and distributing the land to the peasantry, given to them to be held privately and perpetually. The government confiscation wasn't always outright theft; when the oil industry was nationalized, for instance, the oil companies were paid for the equipment. (Not at the asking price, but still.) That agrarian distribution was the only nod I saw to people being put in command of their own lives; most of the politics insists of mobs supporting one caudillo or another, then waiting on The Man to do something.

Timeless Mexico is heavily weighted toward 'current events', which for the author was the 1940s and World War 2. Although Mexico's history with the allied powers had been antagonistic (their all being former colonial-imperial powers in Mexico or its backyard), and despite Mexico's close business ties with Germany, once Japan attacked the United States, America found an immediate ally in its southern neighbor. Given Mexico's political makeup -- a persistently victorious left front that was anti-stalinist on the whole, but which might have a few fans of Murderin' Joe, and the left's opponents, who preferred throwing in with the Nazis -- and its past as being given to violent pendulum revolutions, who could say what might become of it during the conflict? Strode reccommends Mexican history to Americans on the merits of closeness, but World War 2 made that meager division of the Rio Grande much more important.

Although Timeless Mexico isn't quite timeless itself, being dated by a good seventy years at this point, its political coverage is extensive, includes societal change as a matter of course, and is written with devotion to the people. I'll be following this with more up to date books, but found Strode's narrative an affectionate and detailed introduction.

The Spanish Frontier in North America

The Spanish Frontier in North America
© 1992 David J. Weber
602 pages

Although American history books will generally mention the early exploration of North America by figures like de Soto,  little attention on the whole is given to the Spanish colonial enterprise. At its height, Spain's flag flew from the eastern coast of Florida, at St. Augustine, all the way across the continent to Baja California.  That height was reached shortly after the American Revolution, followed by a dramatic decline after the French wars erupted.  While the Southwest still retains its Spanish stamp, in places like the Carolinas or Alabama there's very little left to remember New Spain by.  The Spanish Frontier in North America offers a history of the Spanish colonial enterprise in North America as it waxed and waned with Spain's continental ambitions.

Largely a work of politics, Weber devotes some space toward the end on culture, and especially toward how Spain is remembered in architectural styles like Mission Revival.  At its most basic, it is a sweeping history of Europe's exploration and resettlement of southern North America,  The author contends that understanding American (U.S.) history is impossible without appreciating Spanish America.  It certainly can't be ignored, especially given Spain's role in the war for independence, and The Spanish Frontier opens a new world for me in demonstrating not only the expanse of Spanish exploration, but  the amount of conflict between Spain, France, and Britain which unfolded for centuries before the thirteen English colonies ever entered the international arena.  Also of note, and displayed here, are the European powers'  ever-shifting attitudes towards Native Americans, spanning war and marriage. While all three major powers attempted to cultivate their neighboring tribes as trading partners -- Spain was also very keen on Christianizing the Pueblos, Hopis, etc. This christening wasn't simply a religious introduction, either: the intent was to create Europeans out of the Pueblos, in language, farming, and dress.  Ultimately, even the españoles would adopt their diet and architecture to the new climate as the native incorporated European plants and animals into their culture, creating something closer to a dynamic than a one-way cultural conquest.

I found The Spanish Frontier dense but fascinating. I never knew how far north Spanish explorers trekked, creating posts even in the Carolinas, and that they explored deep into the American interior. I was also unaware of the amount of European warfare on the continent prior to the revolution:  Florida  exchanged hands several times!  Similarly eye-raising was the swiftness of Spain's fall: while it was able to reclaim a lot of lost territory after the Treaty of Paris which ended the American revolution, that brief moment when it stretched from coast to coast was a definite peak: shortly thereafter, Spain fell into succession crises, followed by the French revolution which isolated the colonies from Spain proper. The rising Americans made short work of claiming Florida and pushing across the Mississippi, The author has an odd detachment from European culture, sometimes writing about it as though it were foreign. He informs the readers, for instance, that the Christian rite of initiation is baptism, and that Christians worshiped in places called 'churches'.  Is he writing to Martians?    Weber's work has the heft of a textbook, and is copiously researched:  slightly less than half the text consists of notes.   Though it looks intimidating, it seems very valuable as a colonial reference book.

Our America

Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States
© 2014  Felipe Fernández-Armesto
416 pages

Spain disappears from American history books following the Spanish-American war, in which the tired old empire was given a sound thrashing and retreated from the hemisphere, but Spanish America isn't a thing of the past.  Its heritage is older than English America, not only because the Spanish arrived first but because Spanish colonialism fused itself with the peoples and culture which it found.  Our America is a history of Spanish America, principally Mexico,  delivered from the rare perspective of a Spaniard raised partially in England.  While not nearly as sweeping as Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in the United States,  it offers abounding detail on the Anglo-Spanish struggle for power, first around the Gulf Coast and then later in the southwest as English colonies developed their own identity and ambition.  It is problematic, in that a Spanish Brit spends the book lecturing a American audience on what being 'American' is, but the perspective is unusual and at times refreshing.

Fernández-Armesto examines American history not from the east to the west -- which is how, in fact, the history of the United States as a government unfolded -- but from south to north.  He sees the United States as more colonial than European, and interprets affairs like the Revolution and the Civil War as part of general new-world struggles against colonial power. He sees the South's bid for independence as very kin to Mexico's own battles between centrists and decentralists, for instance . As mentioned, Our America's focus is Mexico and the Southwest, with Cubans and Puerto Ricans receiving scant attention at the very end. Our America is thus more a history of "New Spain" -- a label which, prior to the collapse of the Spanish empire during the Napoleonic wars, encompassed both areas.  If Fernández-Armesto actually hailed from Mexico, this could be called a localist history of the United States, rather like a history of the US delivered from the perspective of the South.  The chief weakness of this book is that the author confuses the United States and 'America' when he argues that the United States began with Spanish America. While the Euro-American experience as a whole began with Spanish exploration, the 'United States' is a government formed by thirteen States along the eastern seaboard of North America, ground never trod by the Spanish.  He also attributes European success in the Americas largely to the 'stranger effect' -- an effect which included hospitality given to visiting strangers, respectful awe of travelers from afar, and  the inclusion of them in native government to swing local battles for power one way or another.  While it's a factor to take into account, he completely writes off the 'guns, germs, and steel' triad in favor of this social element.

As a general history of Latin America, I think Harvest of Empire superior; but the amount of detail given to Spain and England's colonial wrangling, and later the American conquest of the southwest, makes it a book of note. It's certainly gotten my interest in the Spanish colonial period fired up!

Related:
American Colonies, Allen Taylor. Colonial history of Spanish, French, English, Dutch, and even Russian America.
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America, James Wilson
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, Juan Gonzales

Harvest of Empire

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
©  2000 Juan Gonzalez
416 pages

Harvest of Empire is a tale of two civilizations, Anglo and Spanish. In general terms, it recounts the history or rather the plight of Latin America, of people and cultures dominated first by European powers, and then by the colonial rebels turned colonial master, the United States.  The author ends by arguing that the United States owes as much its Hispanic tradition as its Anglo, and that it should embrace Hispanic culture  and make amends to foreign policy which has wreaked havoc throughout the eastern hemisphere.  Divided into three parts, Harvest first dwells on the roots of Anglo-American conflict by recounting the age of discovery and rise of American imperialism, moves to the "branches", in which populations disrupted by war and famine (often linked to American foreign policy) migrate to the United States to seek their fortunes, and then ends with a "harvest" that looks towards a stronger role played by Latino culture in the United States.

 Considering that two of the leading recent  Republican candidates for El Presidente were Cruz and Rubio, 'los hermanos cubanos',  there's no denying the book's relevance, despite its sixteen years of age. Even though neither are in the running now,  immigration  -- the causes and consequences of which are explored here -- remains a big-ticket item.  While some of the author's recommendations (that the United Staces embrace its Hispanic heritage and start promoting and protecting Spanish) are likely to fall flat,  at the very least this review of the United States' catastrophic record of international meddling in central America might give American leadership pause about supporting future debacles.  More convincing is the authors' case for settling the matter of Puerto Rico, which for a century has been a bastard, neither  sovereign, nor a territory or a state.  Harvest has a lot to recommend it, first as a general history of Latin America, secondly by focusing on the widely varying experiences of different Latino groups as they moved to the US.  What name recognition does Puerto Rico have with most Americans, other than the film West Side Story? ("Puerto Rico is en America now!")   The author is right when he points out that the United States is scarcely over two hundred years old, a mere blip in the historical perspective, and the past century of exploitation and dominance by D.C. over Latin America are not likely to last. Latinos will play a larger role in the United States as they continue to migrate here, and will shape D.C's policy as they achieve political influence -- and as the descendants of those who have experienced the consequences of foreign-policy imperialism, they are unlikely to support more of it.

Ornament of the World

Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
© 2002 Maria Rose Menocal
315 pages

        

  Ornament of the World is the story of a unique civilization in medieval Europe, one which ultimately disintegrated but left a hopeful legacy. For hundreds of years, Europe hosted a distinctly Islamic polity: Andalusia, the last stand of the Umayyads. The inheritors of Muhammad’s empire, they were driven out by a palace coup and reestablished themselves across the Mediterranean, building a glorious realm of their own.  They brought the best of an ascendant civilization and combined it with the remnants of the classical world; theirs was a world of fusion which allowed not only Muslims, but Christians and Jews to flourish and contribute as well. Ornament covers a thousand years of Spanish history, mixing literature, art, and politics to deliver with flourish the story of a lost but golden age.  Though heavily romanticized, the author’s  lovestruck tone makes it an enticing introduction to medieval Spain.

 In subject and intent, Ornament is quite similar to A Vanished World, but much tidier. It begins, for instance,  with the rise of Islam, and from there moves forward in the time-honored chronological fashion. Following the death of Muhammad, leadership of the Islamic polity fell to a series of caliphs, one of whom – Ali – was especially consequential. Under his reign, the Umayyad caliphate,  Islam expanded in leaps and bounds. Success ever breeds resentment, however and Ali found himself murdered along with much of his family. A minor relation fled to Spain and there begins the story of Andalusia. Amid the first Muslim civil war, however, the princeling didn't come alone. He and his followers found Iberia ripe for the picking,  and in a matter of time had conquered most of the peninsula.  "Woe to the vanquished!" was not the case, however, as the resident Christian and Jewish populations found themselves officially protected by the new state- - for a small consideration, of course.  Al-andalusia and its capital of Cordoba would go so resplendent that a later successor would presume to claim himself the Caliph, the princeps of Islam..  Islamic politics would be their undoing however; another faction would rebel against the reigning Abassids and make their stronghold in Tunis, just a stone’s throw from Iberia.  When the Umayyads later sought help from the north African Muslims against the resurgent Christians, their allies found their Spanish brethren much too decadent and proceeded to wreck and take over the place, Fourth Crusade style.

The loss of unity following the Umayyads did not destroy the creative culture they established, however; instead, leading city-states competed to out-do the other to restore that glory, just as after the fall of Rome states like Venice, Genoa, and Florence competed against the other. While the Italians engaged in petty wars and magnificent frescoes, the Moors engaged in petty wars and mesmerizing poetry.  Menocal has done prior work on Arabic literature, so not surprisingly language, prose, and verse receive a lot of attention.  The emphasis on literature extends to the Christians and Jews;  Hebrew adopted elements of Arabic verse and flourished in its own right. This was a period of intercultural collaboration;  in Toledo, for instance, Arabic and Jewish scholars worked on translating Aristotelian texts, which then drifted into Europe, replete with commentaries. Just as Muslim mosques and fortresses in Iberia began with Roman bones -- so did resurgent Christian powers adopt elements of Arabic architecture, even in areas where the Umayyads and their successors never reigned.  Eventually the Castille-Aragon alliance would overwhelm the predominately Moorish south, effecting the Reconquest

Ornament compares well to its sister-rival, Vanished World;  for instance, the Muslim sack of Compostela,  which appeared rather randomly in Vanished, features here as part of the Umayyads’s  Iberian downfall.The same general who leads a military coup against them also attacked the Christian shrine. This same episode also accounts for the contrasting versions of St. James – one meek and mild, the other the Muslim-slayer.  After his shrine was desecrated and his pilgrims murdered, the peaceful James returned to have his revenge. Hell hath no fury like a saint scorned!  This covers nearly a thousand years of history in a mere three hundred pages, though, and a lot of that is taken up with swooning over literature and poetry;  this is utterly enjoyable, of course, but it does meant that the political sketch is an outline at best, so this is by no means a complete story. It is a loving tribute to the life of art and philosophy that found a home in Islamic Spain, however.

Vanished World

A Vanished World: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval Spain
© 2005 Chris Lowney
320 pages

Vanished World sets medieval  Spain before the reader with the warning; we may be blessed or cursed by emulating its example. The Iberian peninsula is the very perimeter of western Europe, within a stone's throw of both the vast continent of Africa and the looming expanse of the Atlantic. Despite its apparent remoteness, Iberia was throughout the ages in the very thick of the action --  the pitch wherin civilizations clashed. In an earlier age, Rome and Carthage sparred; a thousand years later,  Visigoths and Muslims fought.  The invasion of Spain in 711 by the Umayyad caliphate made the former province of the Romans, then yet another ruin ruled by nominally Christian barbarians, into an outpost of a far larger, far more sophisticated civilization, where it enjoyed a golden age that was for Europe a preview of the Renaissance and enlightenment.  Here the gifts of the Greeks were preserved and built on; here  both Islam and Rabbinic Judaism grew in new directions.  Vanished World is a brief  and romantic history of medieval Spain, one brimming with hope that we can all just get along.

Until the triumph of Ferdinand and Isabella, who united their kingdoms and created a state commanding the peninsula, Iberia was home to a multitude of peoples and minor states. While many were drawn by commercial cross-traffic, others came to carve out kingdoms, like the Visigoths and their successors from Africa, the Umayyads. Iberia was fractured and destitute, lingering in a winter of civilization that was chased away by an eastern wind. Unlike the barely literate Goths,  the Muslim invaders were part of a vibrant, culturally rich civilization on the ascendant. Sweeping over the peninsula, they infused it with new life, creating a social order that allowed their new subjects to participate in it.  Although the calpihate would falter after the death of its leader, breaking into squabbling branches that were brushed aside by a Castillian comeback,  it reigned for several hundred years and created an environment that brought the best of human passion, creativity, and intelligence to the surface.  After an introduction which establishes an outline of Spain's political history.  most of the book is given over to sections which explore different aspects of the civilization that prevailed between the fall of the Goths and the rise of Castille.  These include chapters on the growth of science, as Muslim and Jewish scholars built upon Greek knowledge and advanced it considerably, as well as some on religious revolution; the Judeo-Muslim mystical traditions both flourished in the Iberian setting. Downey's vision for the book is made apparent in contrasting several pairs of legends. The patron saint of Spain. St. James, was remembered alternatively as either a humble and kind apostle who spread the Gospel to the furthest reaches of the continent, or as Santiago the Muslim-Slayer, who was said to have appeared and led a Christian army to victory. A similar contrast is offered by the Song of Roland, depicting Charlemagne as a Christian warrior fighting the fiendish Muslims, and the story of El Cid, who found honor and friendship among the ranks of both.   Christian and Muslim need not spar, Downey writes, offering various examples of cross-cultural pollination and episodes of historical cooperation, as when Christian and Muslim powers joined together to fight...other Muslim powers. 

Although the subject is fascinating and I wanted badly to like it, in truth the book is limited. Downey is a very casual historian,  chatty and informal.  That can work to a degree, but sometimes retards a reader's ability to take the text seriously. Assuming one is completely oblivious to intellectual life in the medieval epoch, Vanished World will be quite exciting. Personally, Spangenburg and Moser's history of science covered this ground too well for me to take much here, though I did find the bits about Sufism and Kabbalah of interest.  The history is also heavily sanitized in view of Downey's objection. It's a laudable goal, of course, and he does mention a few trifling incidents of unpleasantness, but haranguing Christians for the Crusades is hardly fair when no mention of the Battle of Tours is made.   Sixty years after the conquest of Spain by Moorish armies, the Umayyads advanced on France itself, meeting defeat scarcely 150 miles from Paris.  Humans will never cease to war with one another, though, regardless of religion; Christians may fight Muslims, but as this and countless other books demonstrate, they will happily dig into one another as well. We're a hot-blooded species given to destruction.  That considering, it's nice to review the many ways we are capable of working together, as Downey does here,  touching on science, art, medicine, and even the invention of cowboys.                

Look for a future comparison to Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. 

  

                                               

American Colonies

American Colonies: The Settling of North America
© 2001 Alan Taylor
526 pages          

American Colonies is a sweeping history of the New World,  one that attempts to convey the full American experience, beginning with the arrival of natives and then covering Spanish, French, English, Dutch,  and Russian colonial efforts in turn.  (Hawaii is also addressed, though it’s a bit of a two-thousand mile stretch to call it ‘American’.)  Taylor's declared intention is to tell more than simply the Anglo-American story, which relegates the Indians and other European powers to the role of villains.  At this, he is largely successful, providing a complete survey of native and European settlement and rendering the history of their relations with one another.  The work demonstrates how profoundly diverse both the natives and the Europeans were, documenting the extent of their tangled military and diplomatic relationships. The tacks taken against the natives by Europe varied not only from country to country (in Spain's case, no tact was involved), but from colony to colony, as varied geography and the nature of the neighbors demanded intelligent adaptation. The story of the New World is not simply one of Europeans plowing over the war-and-disease-ravaged lands of peoples like the Iroquois and the Lakota, however, for Europe’s nations also waged war against one another in this new battlefield.

Taylor's narrative style is pleasant enough, even if bothered with a little factual repetition. The content itself is a different story, being nearly five hundred pages of disease, war, slavery,  misery, and death.  No group discussed here comes off particularly well, not even the one-paragraph Vikings. Both the European and native powers wage war against one another and themselves, and in utterly vicious ways;  every chapter brings descriptions of  women raped, children executed, homes and fields burned, men tortured. There are no noble savages here,  and no exemplars of Christian civilization -- only ambitious and wrathful men with blood on their hands.

Taylor's narrative gives a good general view of European evolution, as explorers turned to nation-builders. Death ended to follow in the wake of the pioneers, as many of the diseases Europeans were exposed to as children never existed in the Americas, particularly those which originated from domestic animals, like smallpox.  Early colonists arrived with varying motives; some seeking fortune,  some to create a new society in their own ideal image, and others because it beat starving to death at home.  Invariably they offended their new neighbors, and war erupted.  Conflict between the native peoples and the newly-arriving colonists forced them to adapt to one another:   after seizing Canada, for instance, the English realized it was easier to give their new neighbors tribute every now and again than to maintain a war-footing. The natives, too, had adjustments to make: in the first pitched battle between European forces and Indians, for instance, the tribe in question attacked in a massed formation that fared none too well against organized gunfire. They quickly adopted the guerrilla tactics now associated with 'Indian warfare'.  

Taylor also puts forth a few theories of his own, all rooted in a worldview that sees economic warfare as the driver of everything else. In his view, the French and Iroquois maintained war between themselves for economic advantage,  as the warzone between their territories prevented regional competition with other powers for their goods. Though no fan of capitalism, Taylor's punches against mercantilism could be thrown by Adam Smith himself, pointing out how mother-country meddling smothered economic development time and again. Intriguingly, he suggests that the tax policies that sparked the American Revolution were not simply enacted to cover the costs of the French and Indian War, but to discourage too much emigration to the colonies. 

Slavery is a recurring topic here; a common byproduct of war,  in the age of discovery and colonization it became an economic institution,  especially as practiced in the colonies of the deep south and in the Caribbean.  The sugar plantations of the Indies were particularly dependent on slave labor; for this reason the abolitionists of William Wilberforce’s day avowed that those who took sugar in their tea might as well be drinking the blood of captives. The ranks of slaves were initially more diverse, consisting of captive natives who died in great numbers, and indentured Europeans who ran away and assumed the identity and status of free settlers.  Africans were already accustomed to Old World domestic diseases, and stood out from among both the native and European populations. Consequently,  the plantation lords drew more from African markets, and slavery assumed a racial-and color-based nature, the legacy of which continues to poison the society of the New World.   Before this, however, African slaves had been treated like any other indentured servants,  freed after a time of service and thereafter at liberty to create their own fortune – sometimes by investing in slaves.

American Colonies is a book to be considered,  taking on centuries of North American history  and taming it. Taylor's stated goal was to go beyond the English colonies on the seaboard, and this he does -- taking the reader as far south as Mexico, and galloping through the plains of the Apache to the northern wastes of Alaska.  He makes the complex comprehensible and is especially valuable in the time spent on Spain and France. He has a particular animus against the English and their American 'spawn' that grows tiresome; to his credit, however, he does not make their rivals into moral paragons.  Perhaps it's not so easy to be detached from one's ancestors as those in academia might wish.

Related:

• 1491: The Americas Before Columbus, Charles C Mann
• The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America,  James Wilson
• Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond