The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation

History is the beautiful, brightly lit foam on top of the annihilating tsunami of the unrecorded past. History books are the spectrographic analysis of the light glinting off that foam. Any attempt at making a book more than that is doomed to failure and tedium.

This is not a tedious or failed book. It's just...well...curiously insubstantial. I don't like the focus on the Great and the Good in place of the gestalt of the actions of the Basques. I know, I know, most people can't name their great-grandparents, still less find evidence of their obvious existence, and historians are limited to what documentary evidence exists. But Ignatius Loyola stalled me every time I tried to re-read this book. I hated that jerk when I was confirmed, and show more given the confirmation saint of St. Charles Borromeo, a major Jesuit figure. I am a flawed being, I admit it...I can't abide hagiography, and I fear Kurlansky's absence of harsh, vituperative judgments thundered down upon the founder of the Jesuits sat ill with me.

But the book is, overall, an attempt to do the extremely difficult: Show the unrecorded points of commonality that linked major events in history, ie the involvement of a people generally overlooked. I suspect the Basques like it that way. I don't know what the Basque majority's opinion was of this book, but I suspect it was well and truly mixed. He's drawing attention to us! Yay! Boo! And often from the same person, I'd bet.

Why such a mingy rating as 3.6 stars? Because...well, because it wasn't anywhere near as much fun to read as I expected it to be.

And Loyola, that rotten sleazebag. show less

Parts of The Basque History of the World are fascinating - the discussion of Basque origins and language, social customs, recipes, and other insights. Other parts of the book are confusing and a little tedious - the late 19thand early- to mid-20th century history, for example. Kurlansky tends not to follow a strict chronology. Instead he brings in parallel streams of history that overlap, making the story with such unfamiliar names more difficult to follow. I'm a little uncertain how unbiased he is when it comes to discussing the conflict between the Spanish government and groups like ETA; I'd like to hear both sides before judging. In spite of this, the book is well worth reading.

The Basque Country, also known as Euskal Herria, consists of the four provinces of the Basque Autonomous Community (Euskadi) in northern Spain (Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Alava and Navarra) and three adjacent ones (Labourd, Basse Navarre and Soule) in southwestern France (Pays Basque). The Basque people are believed to be one of the oldest European cultures that are still in existence, and Euskera, the language spoken by the Basques, is the oldest surviving pre-Indo-European language in western Europe and has very little in common with Castilian Spanish or French. The Basque people, especially those in the Spanish portion of the region, have longed and fought fiercely for independence and, more importantly, self governance for centuries, show more using the Fueros, or regional civil laws, that were agreed upon nearly 500 years ago. The region is known for its cultural traditions including the sport of jai alai, the stunning beach resorts in San Sebastián and Biarritz that are popular tourist destinations, and its outstanding cuisine, particularly pintxos, chorizo and salt cod, which all originated there.

The American journalist Mark Kurlansky's fondness and knowledge of the Basque Region shines in this excellent book, which traces the history and traditions of Euskal Herria from its earliest known days to the end of the 20th century, including its major figures such as Ignacio de Loyola, the priest and theologian who founded the Jesuit religious order; Sabino Arana, the founder of Basque nationalism; and Bernardo Atxaga (Joseba Irazu Garmendia), the first Basque author to receive worldwide acclaim for his work, most notably [Obabakoak], a collection of short stories set in the fictional Basque village of Obaba. Kurlansky also describes the region's rich whaling and shipbuilding traditions, the 1937 bombing of the town of Guernica (Gernika) by German planes, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Basque separatist and terrorist group that has maintained its cease fire agreement with the Spanish government since 2010, and the foods that are unique to the region, including at least half a dozen recipes. The focus of the book is on the Spanish Basques, although he does dedicate one chapter to the Pays Basco, who are much more integrated into French government and society.

The Basque History of the World is a readable and entertaining look into this fascinating culture, which was a reasonable length at 400 pages. This was a perfect introduction to my upcoming first visit to the Basque Region, and I highly recommend it to anyone who plans to travel there or is interested in learning more about its people. show less

The Basque are one of the most enigmatic ethnic groups in Europe. Their culture and language have no known relative, and no one can say for certain what the true origin of the people is. While they have been physically isolated for most of their existence by living among hard to access mountains and valleys, they have not been set apart from the people around them since Roman times. From producing major historical figures like Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) and Miguel de Unamuno to being one of the most prosperous regions of Spain in recent history, Kurlansky shows how the Basque have been tied in to a great deal of Western history. Now perhaps better known because of ETA (and originally accused of the Madrid bombing in show more 2003), this book presents a good overview of the people and their seeming constant struggle to retain independence and autonomy despite larger cultures doing their best to overcome the people. show less

This book surprised me in some ways. I was interested in it specifically because my wife and I visited French Basqueland two years back. The book was very well written and very engaging, but I was a bit surprised that it was more or less a straight history of the Basque people from around the Middle Ages to the present. By "straight history" I mean it was mostly a traditional political history, with less cultural information than I was expecting, less about the mythology and social history. Also, much of the book from the post-World War II period onward was a description of the repressive measures of the Franco regime and its predecessors and about the radical and violent ETA nationalist terrorist group. Although all of that is of show more course important and central to the modern Basque story, the book made it seem as if there was little else going on in the Basque areas of Spain and France but that. So I didn't really feel that I got a very good picture of the modern Basque people.

Nevertheless, as I said, I did enjoy the book and feel that I've learned a lot that's interesting about the Basque people, their history and their culture.

It was also interesting to me that the book intersected so strongly with two other books I've read recently, for the section on the middle ages through the Renaissance helped provided some interesting perspective on things I'd recently read about in The Medici. And the detailed chapter on the Spanish Civil War, in which the Basques played an important role, mainly on the Loyalist side, resonated with the novel on the conflict, Another Hill, that I read a month or so. Funny how you can get some interesting congruence that way without even realizing you're doing it. show less

This highly enjoyable read sheds light on an ancient culture that was evidently among the greatest nautical explorers. Their genetics, language, and history are fascinating. Devouring the book.

A fabulous book. I came to it knowing the Basques only as a linguistic curiosity and I now know they're one of the coolest peoples on the planet and that they discovered America.

No one's going to make any claims for Kurlansky being a great stylist, but he writes well and orders his material very well. What bumped this book up to a five was that it's the only one I've ever read that had a recipe for cat.