Landscapes of the Imagination – serie

The Alps are Europe's highest mountain range: their broad arc stretches right across the center of the continent, encompassing a wide range of traditions and cultures. Andrew Beattie explores the turbulent past and vibrant present of this landscape, where early pioneers of tourism, mountaineering, and scientific research, along with the enduring legacies of historical regimes from the Romans to the Nazis, have all left their mark.

The Basque Country is a land of fascinating paradoxes and enigmas. Home to one of Europe's oldest people and most mysterious languages, with a living folklore rich in archaic rituals and dances, it also boasts a dynamic post-modern energy, with the reinvention of Bilbao creating a model for the twenty-first-century city of cultural services and information technologies. Hugging the elbow of the Bay of Biscay on both the French and Spanish sides of the Pyrenees, this small territory abounds in big contrasts, ranging from moist green valleys to semi-desert badlands, from snowy sierras to sandy beaches, from harsh industrial landscapes to bucolic beech woods. This often idyllic scenery is the stage for fierce political passions. Almost every aspect of the Basque Country generates passionate disagreement, even its precise location. Spanish and French centralism, often authoritarian and sometimes brutal, has met with resistance for two centuries. Most recently and notoriously ETA, a terrorist group with deep popular support, has engaged in a bloody 45-year conflict.But, many Basques consider themselves full French or Spanish citizens, and fear political and linguistic exclusion under Basque nationalist rule. Land of ancient and modern culture: Basque is a land of ancient and modern culture: Basque poets still compose spontaneous stanzas in public contests, but the region has also produced novelists like Pio Baroja and Bernardo Atxaga, sculptors like Chillida, painters like Zuluoaga, and cineastes like Julio Medem. Strange sports and fiestas: Rock-lifting, grass-scything, goose-decapitation - ancient agricultural practices generate a host of contests still common at fiestas, which also feature dancers costumed as horses, witches, and ancient deities. The guggenheim and gastronomy: It also boasts of the guggenheim and gastronomy: Bilbao's flagship museum may be the best building of the last century; its restaurant is one of thousands which produces some of the best meals in the world.

Squeezed between more powerful France and Spain, Catalonia has endured a violent history. Its medieval empire that conquered Naples, Sicily and Athens was crushed by Spain. Its geography, with the Pyrenees falling sharply to the rugged Costa Brava, is tormented, too. Michael Eaude traces this history and its monuments: Roman Tarragona, celebrated by the poet Martial; Greek Empuries, lost for centuries beneath the sands; medieval Romanesque architecture in the Vall de Boi churches (a World Heritage Site) and Poblet and Santes Creus monasteries. He tells the stories of several of Catalonia's great figures: Abbot Oliva, who brought Moorish learning to Europe, the ruthless mercenary, Roger de Flor, and Verdaguer, handsome poet-priest. Catalonia is famous today for its twentieth-century art. This book focuses on the revolutionary Art Nouveau buildings (including the Sagrada Familia) of Antoni Gaudi. It also explores the region's artistic legacy: the young Picasso painting Barcelona's vibrant slums; Salvador Dali, inspired by the twisted rocks of Cap de Creus to paint his landscapes of the human mind; and Joan Miro, discovering the colours of the red earth at Montroig.This book talks about: mountains and mediterranean: Pyrenean peaks with calm lakes, birds of prey and deep valleys; Montserrat, where Himmler searched for the Holy Grail; the Costa Brava, its virgin beauty still visible alongside the resorts of the package-holiday boom; the rice fields and bird life of the wild Ebro Delta. It also talks about revolution and war, looking at anarchism, revolution and Civil War (covered by both Orwell and Hemingway), then forty years of Franco's dictatorship. It illuminates the self-confidence of modern Catalonia: linguistic revival, Barcelona Football Club, popular music, the cuisine of Ferran Adria; and, cava sparkling wine.

A garden at the foot of Europe and a crossroads between Spain, Africa and the New World, Andaluca has been a cultural customs house on the border of the Mediterranean and Atlantic civilisations for more than ten thousand years. This book traces its origins from the earliest hominid settlers in the Granada mountains 1.8 million years ago, through successive Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Muslim cultures, and the past five hundred years of modern Castilian rule, up to and including the present day of post-modern novelists in Crdoba and Sevilla, guerrilla urban archaeologists in Torremolinos and Marbella, and underground lo-fi bands in Granada and Mlaga.

Brittany's richly layered landscape has contributed depth and character to the region's traditional oral culture, from stories of the sea and shore to tales of misty moors, sacred hill-tops and secretive forests. Evangelizing Dark Age saints from Britain laid the foundations of Breton language and society, imposing Christianity on the landscape and in the minds of the people. Their legacy rests visually in the prolific spread of chapels, churches and cathedrals, and the Celtic language still preserved with pride. Right on the edge of Europe, the region has been vulnerable to assault and exploitation. Franks, Vikings, English, Germans have all made their mark, resisted at every turn with resilience. The problematic relationship with neighbouring France before and after Union in 1532 has left wounds to this day. The rapacity of the ancien regime was followed by deprivation of privileges during the Revolution, attacks on religion and subsequent suppression of the Breton language which struck at the very heart of Brittany. The nineteenth century combined economic stagnation with growing interest in Celtic roots, fuelling the search for that ultimate chimera - Breton identity.Historians and poets began to assert the distinct character of the region, while foreign travellers also left accounts of a people speaking an unfathomable language and appearing a race apart. This "primitivism" coupled with the lure of the mysterious megaliths created an image of wild exoticism, and made Brittany a prime target for tourists and artists. Today the past is perpetuated and the future welcomed in a packed festival calendar of Celtic music and Breton culture. Yet for all its modernity, Brittany remains as intensely complex and challenging to preconceived notions as ever. LANDSCAPE AND LEGENDS: Marches of Brittany; Druids and megaliths; St-Malo and sea adventures; mysteries of the Monts d'Arree; Merlin in the Foret de Broceliande. COMPLEXITY AND AMBIGUITY: part of France yet a separate world; nationalism, regionalism, resistance, unity and division of language; four departments or five? WRITERS AND ARTISTS: Chaucer, Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Ernest Renan, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, Arthur de la Borderie, Mathurin Meheut, Max Jacob, Yves Tanguy.