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At the heart of the Castilian plateau, far from the coastal towns and ports of Spain, sits the great city of Madrid. Perched some 2,200 feet above the distant sea, it is at once the loftiest and also the most enigmatic of Europe's capitals: hard to decipher for the Spanish and for foreigners alike. Its intense character and the abrupt manner and hectic lifestyle of the Madrilenos can make even other Spaniards feel exhausted. Yet, Madrid has a rich historical and cultural life which attracts almost 8 million visitors per year, drawn to its beautiful palaces and churches, the magnificent collections of the Prado and everywhere the echoes of a faded empire. Despite its ancient origins, Madrid feels like a modern, youthful city. But the legacy of Madrid's 'golden age' - the Spanish colonies from the Andes to the Philippines from which the city derived such wealth - remains evident in the extravagant Baroque facades of the old city. Jules Stewart here provides an insider's account of Madrid and unveils the history and culture of one of Europe's most fascinating, but least-understood cities.
Hidden Madrid is an offbeat guide to the capital for those with a little free time on their hands and an interest in discovering Madrid's oddities. Where in town can you buy homemade pastries from cloistered nuns? How did King Felipe II plan to turn Madrid into a seaport? What deep, dark secret did Dr. Velasco hide in what is now the Anthropological Museum? What did a sudden sandy gust of wind and a king have to do with the coining of the word tapa? Where in Madrid would you find a statue dedicated to the Fallen Ángel (Lucifer)? What happened when a run-away fighting bull rampaged through the Gran Vía? Why are people from Madrid called gatos (cats)? What tips should you follow when attending your first bullfight? Where can you still find vestiges of the Franco era dictatorship? You'll find the answers to these and many other questions in Hidden Madrid all presented in a readable and entertaining fashion. Over 150 photographs and detailed maps pin-point all the sights and curiosities that you can visit on your own.
In July 1936 insurgent Spanish troops organized a military coup to oust the elected Republican government in Madrid. The rebel generals expected to force a quick, clean regime change but they failed. The botched uprising turned into a bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands died in a bitter conflict which tore the country apart and rapidly turned into the prelude for an even greater conflict yet to come--the Second World War. The siege of Madrid was the key battle of the war. The world watched and waited for the city to surrender as General Franco's Nationalist army, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, closed in on the Spanish capital. But Madrid did not fall. Madrileños fought tooth and nail to defend their city. Helped by volunteers from fifty other countries--the International Brigades--they held out against all the odds until the end of the conflict in 1939. Despite its central role in twentieth-century history, the siege of Madrid is an episode largely hidden from today's visitor. There is no guide to the war sites and few clues for the inquisitive traveller who wants to know more. Frontline Madrid fills that gap. This unique guide book explains what life was like in the city under siege and what happened in the battlefield dramas. The simple to follow maps and diagrams make it easy to visit the frontline sites. The vividly written descriptions bring events and people compellingly to life. The role of prominent individuals, British and American--Orwell, Hemingway, John Cornford is explored. Off the beaten track, from the University district in the city centre to the mountains of Guadarrama less than an hour away, the remains of the war in Madrid can still be found--gun emplacements, bunkers, trenches and occasional debris. Frontline Madrid retraces the footsteps of those who lived through the conflict to take the reader on a tour in time. The usual tourist traps are left far behind to enter the gripping world of a war which shaped modern European history.
Madrid on the move illustrates print culture and the urban experience in nineteenth-century Spain. It provides a fresh account of modernity by looking beyond its canonical texts, artworks, and locations and explores what being modern meant to people in their daily lives. Rather than shifting the loci of modernity from Paris or London to Madrid, this book decentres the concept and explains the modern experience as part of a more fluid, global phenomenon. Meanings of the modern were not only dictated by linguistic authorities and urban technocrats; they were discussed, lived, and constructed on a daily basis. Cultural actors and audiences displayed an acute awareness of what being modern entailed and explored the links between the local and the global, two concepts and contexts that were being conceived and perceived as inseparable.
With its selection as the court of the Spanish Habsburgs, Madrid became the de facto capital of a global empire, a place from which momentous decisions were made whose implications were felt in all corners of a vast domain. By the seventeenth century, however, political theory produced in the Monarquía Hispánica dealt primarily with the concept of decline. In this book, Jesús Escobar argues that the buildings of Madrid tell a different story about the final years of the Habsburg dynasty. Madrid took on a grander public face over the course of the seventeenth century, creating a “court space” for residents and visitors alike. Drawing from the representation of the city’s architecture in prints, books, and paintings, as well as re-created plans standing in for lost documents, Escobar demonstrates how, through shared forms and building materials, the architecture of Madrid embodied the monarchy and promoted its chief political ideals of justice and good government. Habsburg Madrid explores palaces, public plazas, a town hall, a courthouse, and a prison, narrating the lived experience of architecture in a city where a wide roster of protagonists, from architects and builders to royal patrons, court bureaucrats, and private citizens, helped shape a modern capital. Richly illustrated, highly original, and written by a leading scholar in the field, this volume disrupts the traditional narrative about seventeenth-century Spanish decadencia. It will be welcomed by specialists in Habsburg Spain and by historians of art, architecture, culture, economics, and politics.
Acclaimed composer, sought-after conductor, esteemed educator, tireless advocate for the arts--Tania León’s achievements encompass but also stretch far beyond contemporary classical music. Alejandro L. Madrid draws on oral history, archival work, and ethnography to offer the first in-depth biography of the artist. Breaking from a chronological account, Madrid looks at León through the issues that have informed and defined moments in her life and her professional works. León’s words become a starting ground--but also a counterpoint--to the accounts of the people in her orbit. What emerges is more than an extraordinary portrait of an artist's journey. It is a story of how a human being reacts to the challenges thrown at her by history itself, be it the Cuban revolution or the struggle for civil and individual rights. Nuanced and multifaceted, Tania León's Stride looks at the life, legacy, and milieu that created and sustained one of the most important figures in American classical music.
"A mature, honest, and erotic romance that will have readers admiring what these two smart and determined women accomplish.” —Library Journal In this sexy, sophisticated romantic comedy, two women juggle romance and career across continents. Charlotte Hilaire has a love-hate relationship with her work as a museum courier. On the one hand, it takes her around the world. On the other, her plan to become a professor is veering dangerously off track. Yet once in a while, maybe every third trip or so, the job goes delightfully sideways… When a blizzard strands Charlotte in Spain for a few extra days and she’s left with glorious free time on her hands, the only question is: Dare she invite her grad school crush for an after-dinner drink on a snowy night? Accomplished, take-no-prisoners art historian Adrianna Coates has built an enviable career since Charlotte saw her last. She’s brilliant. Sophisticated. Impressive as hell and strikingly beautiful. Hospitable, too, as she absolutely insists Charlotte spend the night on her pullout sofa as the storm rages on. One night becomes three and three nights become a hot and adventurous long-distance relationship when Charlotte returns to the States. But when Adrianna plots her next career move just as Charlotte finally opens a door in academia, distance may not be the only thing that keeps them apart. Carina Adores is home to romantic love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.
The untold story of Real Madrid: one of the most incredible turnarounds in sports and business history. Real Madrid is the most successful sports team on the planet. The soccer club has more trophies than any other sports team, including 11 UEFA Champions League trophies. However, the story behind the triumph goes beyond the players and coaches. Generally unnoticed, a management team consisting mostly of outsiders took the team from near bankruptcy to the most valuable sports organization in the world. How did Real Madrid achieve such extraordinary success? Columbia Business School adjunct professor Steven G. Mandis investigates. Given unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, Mandis is the first researcher to rigorously ana- lyze both the on-the-field and business aspects of a sports team. What he learns is completely unexpected and challenges the conventional wisdom that moneyball-fueled data analytics are the primary instruments of success. Instead, Real Madrid's winning formula both on and off the field, from player selection to financial management, is based on aligning strategy with the culture and values of its fan base. Chasing the most talented (and most expensive) players can be a recipe for a winning record, but also financial disaster, as it was for Real Madrid in the late 1990s. Real Madrid's management believes that the club exists to serve the Real Madrid community. They discovered that its fans care more about why the team exists, how their club wins, and whom it wins with versus just winning. The why, how, and whom create a community brand and identity, and inspire extraordinary passion and loyalty, which has led to amazing marketing and commercial success—in turn, attracting and paying for the best players in the world, with the values the fans expect. The club's values and culture also provide a powerful environment for these best players to work together to win trophies. The Real Madrid Way explains how Real Madrid has created and maintains a culture that drives both financial and on-the-field success. This book is an engrossing account of the lifetime of one of the greatest clubs in the most popular sport in the world, and for business and organization leaders, it's an invaluable inside look at a compelling alternative model with lasting competitive advantages that can deliver superior and sustainable returns and performance.
This book explores the role played by artists and intellectuals who constructed and disseminated various competing images of national identity which polarized Spanish society prior to the Civil War. The convergence of modern and essentialist discourses and practices, especially in literature and poetry, in what is conventionally called in Spanish letters "The Generation of '27", created fissures between competing views of aesthetics and ideology that cut across political affiliation. Silvina Schammah exposes the paradoxes facing Madrid's cultural vanguards, as they were torn by their ambition for universality, cosmopolitanism and transcendence on the one hand and by the centripetal forces of nationalistic ideologies on the other. Taking upon themselves roles to become the disseminators and populizers of radical positions and world-views first elaborated and conducted by the young urban intelligentsia, their proposed aim of incorporating diverse identities embedded in different cultural constructions and discourse was to have very real and tragic consequences as political and intellectual lines polarized in the years prior to the Spanish Civil War.
This is the first comprehensive listing of all books published in Spain, Portugal, Mexico and Peru or in Spanish or Portuguese before 1601. Iberian Books offers an analytical short title-catalogue of over 19,000 bibliographically distinct items, with reference to around 100,000 surviving copies in over 1,200 libraries worldwide. By drawing together information from many previously disparate published and online resources, it seeks to provide a single, powerful research resource. Fully-indexed, Iberian Books is an indispensible work of reference for all students and specialists interested in the literature, history and culture of the Iberian Peninsula in the early modern age, as well as historians of the European book world. For the period 1601-1650, see Iberian Books Volumes II & III.