Is Spain Different

Now in an updated second edition Seven years after the publication of the first edition, Spain is still different, but it is changing, too - modernizing rapidly and participating as an active member of the European Union. While thoroughly updating her original work, Helen Wattley-Ames has maintained her focus in describing the uniqueness of both the Spanish people and their culture and on examining what effect the differences have on the way the Spaniards and Americans relate to and interact with each other. She looks at how Spain has evolved from a travel destination, as source of "sun and cheap wine," to a dynamic modern society. She depicts a people proud of their accomplishments, yet working hard to maintain valued traditions in the face of increased buying power and more European and American influence. The author begins by looking into Spain's past and at critical dimensions of present day American-Spanish relations. She then explores certain aspects of culture important in cross-cultural interactions: society and the individual; relationships; language and communication; work and play. She ends each chapter with an "encounter" - a critical incident that illuminates a situation which may cause misunderstanding, embarrassment or conflict. With extensively updated and revised sections on women (in the workplace in particular), and new sections on minorities and immigrants, and ethics and corruption, the new edition of Spain is Different will be welcomed by anyone looking for clear guidance on how to be most effective in the encounter with the people and culture of Spain.

The end of the second millennium witnessed an increase in science-fictional apocalyptic narratives globally. There is a noteworthy difference between such fictions from Latin America and the anglophone world and those from Spain, in which scientific explanations of events coexist with biblically-inspired plots, characters and imagery. This is the first book-length study of either science-fictional novels or apocalyptic literature in that country, analysing six such works between 1990 and 2005. Within a theoretical framework that includes critical and genre theories, archetypal criticism, and biblical scholarship, the book explains this phenomenon as a result of three historical factors: the ‘Two Spains’, Spanish ‘difference’, and the ‘Pact of Silence’, a tacit agreement that made justice and accountability impossible in the name of a peaceful transition to democracy. It repressed any processing of the historical trauma experienced during the Civil War and dictatorship, trauma that manifests itself symbolically in these fictions.

"Spain Is (Still) Different introduces readers to issues concerning the cultural function of tourism in Spain. An international team of scholars addresses both theoretical perspectives on the study of tourism in Spain and specific cases of the cultural impact of travel and tourism on Spanish culture in the late eighteenth to early twenty-first centuries.

The slogan that launched the tourist industry in the 1960s, Spain is different, has come to haunt historians. This book tackles a number of key themes in modern Spanish history: liberalism, nationalism, anticlericalism, the Second Republic, the Franco dictatorship and the transition to democracy.

The history of twentieth-century Spanish nationalism is a complex one, placing a set of famously distinctive regional identities against a backdrop of religious conflict, separatist tensions, and the autocratic rule of Francisco Franco. And despite the undeniably political character of that story, cultural history can also provide essential insights into the subject. Metaphors of Spain brings together leading historians to examine Spanish nationalism through its diverse and complementary cultural artifacts, from “formal” representations such as the flag to music, bullfighting, and other more diffuse examples. Together they describe not a Spanish national “essence,” but a nationalism that is constantly evolving and accommodates multiple interpretations.

Momentous changes swept Spain in the fifteenth century: royal marriage united its two largest kingdoms, the last Muslim emirate fell to Catholic armies, and conquests in the Americas were turning Spain into a great empire. Yet few people could define “Spanishness” concretely. Antonio Feros traces Spain’s evolving ideas of nationhood and ethnicity.

Engaging history of the rich cultural, social and political life of Spain from prehistoric times to the present.

A narrative analysis of four main discourses of national identity in Spain, with a special focus on Catalonia, as disseminated in the Spanish press in the period between 1993 and 1996. The study includes assessments of the Spanish press coverage of the 1994 USA Football World Cup, and the process of negotiation towards a pact between Partido Popular and Convergencia I Unio in central government.