The publishing world continues to bet on history. Perhaps this 2023 vintage has not been an extremely prosperous vintage, but very good essays by established authors and young researchers have landed in bookstores that present novel approaches to Ancient Rome o to Civil war. Here is a list of some of the books that we have unraveled in this newspaper and that we liked the most.
Emperor of Rome (Criticism)
All works of Mary Beard, whether their texts or their excellent documentaries, hide a different look at the fascinating world of Antiquity. But Emperor of Rome It is probably his best book. The popular classicist combines all her erudition with great skills of dissemination to delve into what it meant to be an imperial ruler. A complete x-ray of unlimited power that warns about the great danger of autocracies: their ability to subvert the natural order of things and replace reality with imposture.
The Roman universe is an editorial wealth and 2023 has continued to shed light on many new developments in this regard. Other recommended ones are Hadrian’s wall (Desperta Ferro), a volume with a spectacular graphic apparatus of photographs and illustrations in which the historian Adrian Goldsworthy unravel the history and secrets of the Empire’s largest defensive construction; Cvnnusof Patricia Gonzalez, about the Romans’ relationship with sex; and Moments from ancient Rome that changed the world (Espasa), a work in which the archaeologist and popularizer Néstor F. Marqués collects a series of unknown and surprising episodes that defined the destiny of the The city.
Without luster, without glory (Desperta Ferro)
A book that confirms that there are aspects of the Civil War that have not yet been told, or have not been told well. Luis A. Ruiz Casero, archaeologist and doctor in History from the Complutense University of Madrid, rescues the true dimension of the combats that took place since the end of the winter of 1936-1937 on the forgotten fronts of Guadalajara and Toledo, a sea of secondary but high intensity operations. A spectacular work due to its depth, the use of documentary and archaeological sources and the literary expertise of the narration.
The Renacimiento publishing house, with its Espuela de Plata label, has relaunched Men made in Moscowa shocking first-person account of the fratricidal feud in which Enrique Castro Delgado, founder and commander of the 5th Regiment of Popular Militias of the Republican Army and the person responsible for the repression in Madrid during the first months of the war, confesses to the crimes in which he participated. An extraordinary exercise in honesty that could hardly be achieved in the universe of used bookstores.
The world (Criticism)
Simon Sebag Montefiore, with a copy of his new work. Jesús Hellín Europa Press
Another monumental work of the historian best seller Simon Sebag Montefiore, the most ambitious of all his bibliography. A fascinating, fun, raw, brutal piece, full of unique and epic characters in which it unfolds a global history of humanity, focusing on families and dynasties. “It is the most diverse that has ever been written,” he boasted in an interview with this newspaper.
Stalingrad: two new readings
This year two books have been published that shed light on one of the most decisive battles of World War II. The first of them is Stalingrad (Past&Present), by the researcher Jonathan Trigg, in which the clash is approached through the hardships and testimonies of German soldiers; the other, The Stalingrad lighthouse (Attic of Books), signed by the historian Iain MacGregordismantles one of the great legends of Soviet propaganda, the heroic resistance of a small garrison around a strategic building located in the center of the city.
A human look at the conflict is what the veteran German journalist also offers Volker Ullrich he Eight days of May (Taurus), a vibrant reconstruction of the outcome of Nazi madness, from the suicide of Adolf Hitler to the unconditional capitulation of the Third Reich a week later.
The smell of the Middle Ages (Attic of Books)
The Middle Ages are traditionally associated with a dirty time and disgusting odors. But this idea is nothing more than a myth that finds its roots in cinema and that the historian demolishes. Javier Treaty and the divulger Consuelo Sanz de Bremond in a vast essay of a thousand pages. The authors address the evolution of medieval collective and individual hygiene and rescue practices that bury many inventions of fiction. A great documentation exercise that sheds light on aspects such as the reuse of clothing, the organization of garbage cans or toothpaste recipes.
In this same editorial we find two other interesting medieval novelties: the succulent and fun The fires of lustfrom the historian Katherine Harvey, which combats clichés about sexual relations in the Middle Ages; and Femaleof Janina Ramirez, a provocative story that shakes the traditional image of women of the period. To end the topic, one last proposal would be Guide to traveling back in time to medieval England (Captain Swing), Ian Mortimer.
1923 (Sword)
One year after the coup d’état that changed the history of Spain, Roberto Villa García, professor of Political History at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid, has published a provocative and original essay in which he reviews “the axial point” of the Spanish 20th century. In this essay, the author reveals the true role of King Alfonso recovered from the great crisis that opened in 1917.
No less shocking are the conclusions drawn by historians. Xavier Casals Messenger y Enric Ucelay-Da Cal in The Ramblas Fascio (Past&Present), an essay with controversial theses that delves into the origins of Spanish fascism, a phenomenon that had its roots in Cuba, emerged and took shape on the Peninsula for the first time in Barcelona between 1919 and 1923 and had echoes and reverberations in the capital between the end of 1922 and the beginning of the following year.
Spain with honor (Attic of Books)
The Spanish 19th century may be a reviled era, but it is also fascinating. In this high-quality work of dissemination, Daniel Aquillue, doctor in Contemporary History from the University of Zaragoza, draws an excellent and critical summary, ideal for the general public, about a labyrinthine period marked by wars, revolutions, pronouncements and profound political and social changes. A book that gives the keys to the dizzying “long century” in which an imperial Catholic monarchy entered into crisis, an imperial nation was tested and a nation-state comparable to other neighboring examples was built upon it.
Intrepid Lives (Awakens Iron)
The renowned military historian Julio Albi de la Cuesta In this volume, he presents fifteen human sketches about the experience of the men who, with their lights and shadows, swelled the ranks of the Tercios, the powerful armed arm of the Hispanic Monarchy. A “kaleidoscope of multiple facets” that covers the period 1535-1690 and all fields of operations, from Julián Romero’s heroic intervention in the battle of San Quentin to soldier Miguel Castro’s obsession with women.
Desperta Ferro has also published new research by Alex Claramunt, an excellent study of the six years of government of the Grand Duke of Alba in the Netherlands and the campaigns he promoted in 1572-1573 to appease the action of the rebels. The book reconstructs these events using Dutch sources favorable to both sides and presents a global picture of the causes and origins of the Flemish revolt against Spain.
Scorched Earth (Criticism)
Conflicts, massacres, sieges, mass graves, destruction of cities, sacrifices, genocides, severed heads and all kinds of horrors from the Paleolithic to the current war in Ukraine populate the pages of this empirically terrifying book with which the archaeologist Alfredo González Ruibal Try to understand why humans have slaughtered each other for thousands of years. And what archeology offers is an intimate, everyday view of violence that serves as an antidote to any romanticization of war.
The also archaeologist Lara Michael collect in Mudlarking (Captain Swing) a less dramatic archaeological story: an endless number of finds that have been recorded in the most abundant and extensive site in the world, the Thames River. His work, in which he stars as a sort of Sherlock Holmes of the past, forms a collage of tiny micro-stories that form a puzzle that projects an image of the evolution of London at ground level.
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2023-12-18 22:32:35
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