INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF SPAIN

Useful Websites



Wikipedia:  The Free Encyclopedia:  The article on Spain in one of the most useful of all websites dealing with the subject.  Wikipedia is becoming the sort of thing the great scifi writer, Gordon Dickinson, had in mind decades ago when he wrote about “The Great Encyclopedia” though given its very fluid and unregulated nature, it is a website that must be used with great care!  Never rely on it exclusively for your information! 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Spain

Libro, the Library of Iberian Resources Online:  This is a growing collection of books dealing with Spain reproduced on the web in their entirety.  http://libro.uca.edu/

Libro has published as part of its collection A History of Spain and Portugal by Stanley Payne.  This is a fine textbook by one of America’s best-known historians of Spain.   http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107987.html 

Spanish History Bibliography:  Select bibliography put out by Yale University listing useful books for Spanish research.
http://www.library.yale.edu/rsc/history/spanhist/

Travelling in Spain:  Commercial site with lots of links on a variety of cultural as well as historical subjects.  There are also links to pages with information on more than a dozen important cities and towns.  Good illustrations.
http://www.travelinginspain.com/culture.html

”Sí España”:  Interactive site based in Canada.  Has short entries for many major historical topics.  Site is available in English, Spanish, French, and German.  Good practice for your other languages.
http://www.sispain.org/SiSpain/english/index.html

Spain Info.com:  Non-academic site containing basic information on Spanish culture.  Contains a good map of Spain.
http://www.spain-info.com/index.html

Brief source with basic facts about Spain.  The historical treatment leans toward the 20th century.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107987.html 


Websites dealing with the pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostela:

Wikipedia:  The Free Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela

Camino de Santiago:  Multilingual site with numerous illustrations.
http://www.santiago-compostela.net/

A walking tour recorded in photographs (2003).
http://www.worksandwords.com/sp03home.htm

Richard Frederik, On the Camino de Santiago:  The Way of Saint James A Walking Tour (2005).
http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/75/Walking_The_Camino_de_Santiago.html


Primary Source Material

History of Spain:  Primary Documents:  An excellent and wide-ranging collection of documents dealing with Spain through the ages.  http://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/History_of_Spain:_Primary_Documents

Libro, the Library of Iberian Resources Online:  This website, already mentioned above, contains an extensive list of books on Spanish history no longer in print.  Some of these constitute primary sources.  For example, the medieval Catalan lawcode, The Utsatges of Barcelona, translated by my close friend and colleague, Donald J. Kagay.  
http://libro.uca.edu/

The Visigothic code (Forum judicum)
, translated by S.P. Scott http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/visigoths.htm  

Various items in the Medieval Sourcebook posted by Fordham University, one of America's leading centers of Medieval Studies.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/

Medieval Sourcebook: Las Siete Partidas: Laws on Jews, 1265 http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/jews-sietepart.html

Medieval Sourcebook:  Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/732tours.html

Medieval Sourcebook: Ibn Abd-el-Hakem: The Islamic Conquest of Spain
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/conqspain.html

Jewish History Sourcebook: The Expulsion from Spain, 1492 CE: www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/1492-jews-spain1.html

 

 

 





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