Volume 11, Number 11 · December 19, 1968
Allá vá! Ra! Ra! Ra!
By Raymond Carr
Iberia
by James Michener
Random House, 795 pp., $10.00
Spanish Scene
by Chandler Brossard
Viking, 113 pp., $4.00
Franco
by Brian Crozier
Little, Brown, 589 pp., $10.00
Franco
by George Hills
Macmillan, 420 pp., $7.95
Why have so many observers since Dr. Johnson found in Spain an inexplicable singularity? To intelligent Spaniards, although they may enjoy the old gambits of seeking the roots of 'Spanishness,' this incomprehension has always been an irritation: they see themselves as part of Europe and resent travelers who find in the flamenco and the bullfight the essence of Spanish nationality. Other Spaniards have gloried in cultural and psychological isolationism. Spain is the unchanging mirror held up to the West—above all to the United States—in which can be observed the ugly distortions of civilizations that have forgotten the Council of Trent.
Review, 2773 words
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