A garden at the foot of Europe and a crossroads between Spain, Africa and the New World, Andalucía has been a cultural customs house on the border of the Mediterranean and Atlantic civilizations for more than ten thousand years. Jonah was one of the first explorers to reach its earliest Atlantic settlements; Columbus discovered America sailing from Palos de la Frontera in Huelva; its great river, the Guadalquivir, flowing across Andalusía from the mountains to its vast river plains, watered Spain’s history, culture and economy.

This book traces its origins from the earliest hominid settlers in the Granada mountains 1.8 million years ago, through successive Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Muslim cultures, and the past five hundred years of modern Castilian rule, up to and including the present day of post-modern novelists in Cordoba and Sevilla, guerrilla urban archaeologists in Torremolinos and Marbella, and underground lo-fi bands in Granada and Malaga.

Andalucía is the sum of its ancient cultures, and also a pointer to where Europe is heading, a beacon for both wealthy north Europeans and refugees from the south, a garden of earthly delights for some, a terminal beach for others. Photographs by renowned Andalucia based photographer Michelle Chaplow.

MOUNTAINS AND SEAS: From the snowfields of the Sierra Nevada to the marshlands of the Coto Doñana; from the deserts of Almería to the desert shores of the Costa de la Luz.

PAINTERS AND POETS: From the cave artists of Benaoján to the abstract expressionists of Granada, via Velázquez and Picasso, and from Cervantes to twenty-first-century literary sharpshooter Juan Bonilla.

ARCHITECTS AND PHILOSOPHERS: Hunting for Atlantis in the Doñana; the space-station cities of Italíca; Madinat al-Zahra and the Alhambra; the palaces of the Spanish Golden Age, Calatrava’s Alamillo bridge for Sevilla; Andaluz thinkers from Averroes and Maimonides to modern discontents Blas Infante, Lorca and Goytisolo.

COMPOSERS AND CANTANTES: Andalucían classical music; Renaissance composers Guerrero and Morales; De Falla and Turina; El Camaron and Enrique Morente; Radio Tarifa and Ketama; Mano Negra, Lagartija Nick and Chambao.

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