Culture and Customs of Spain

by Stanton, Edward F.

• ISBN13: 9780313360800
• ISBN10: 0313360804
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-10-30
• Publisher: ABC-CLIO

Summary

Modern Spain is a revelation in this up-to-date overview. Stanton vibrantly describes the startling variety of landscape, people, and culture that make up Spain today. Included are a context chapter and others on religion, customs, media, cinema, literature, performing arts, and visual arts. Students of Spanish and a general audience will be rewarded with engrossing insights into what writer Ernest Hemingway called the very best country of all. Spain is a modern European nation, yet Spaniards are fiercely tied to their individual towns and regionswith their distinct social customs, dialects or languages, foods, landscape, and lifestylesmore than to a united country. Culture and Customs of Spain conveys the extremes, such as the hard-working Catalan contrasted to the leisurely paced Castilian, coexisting in first and third world conditions, and the love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church. Spain's institutions are described, and its contributions to the worldfrom unparalleled literature and cuisine to flamenco and filmmaker Pedro Almodovarare celebrated. A chronology and glossary complement the text.