Current Literature
SPAIN : A BRIEF HISTORY
By W. C. Atkinson
It is surprising that the appearance in this year of a short history of Spain should fill a long-felt want : and yet before Professor Atkinson's book was written no such serviceable study, at once concise and comprehensive, has been available. The " little books " on Spain are travel reminiscences, usually as impertinent as they are wearisome, and the more authoritative volumes lopsided and. uninspired. Spain : A Brief History (Methuen, 6s.) with its 180 pages of text, its first-class map and chronological table, should do much to raise the generally infamous level of instruction in Spanish other than commercial in this country. Necessarily terse, always, if a trifle donnish, skilful in compression, it presents a just and sympathetic interpretation of Spanish history in the light of Spanish character and values. Particularly apt and stimulating are the chapters dealing with the cycle of Moorish occupations, the giddy uprush and patho- logical decline of the five Hapsburg reigns from Charles V to Charles II (" leading from general sanity through 'religious fanaticism to hypocrisy, licence, and imbecility ") and the slow disintegration of the Bourbon monarchy from Philip V to Ferdinand VII, which cloaks the convalescence of a sturdy people. Only lack of space prevents quotation of many passages of unerring analysis which should make the book indispensable wherever knowledge is sought of the enduring vitality and paradox of that " hidden land," mis- represented in the world, cut of from Europe and d destined yet, perhaps, for new conquistas in the future.•
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