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 invented America out of a shipyard in Cádiz; its great river, the Guadalquivir, flowing across Andalucía 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 Córdoba and Sevilla, guerrilla urban archaeologists in Torremolinos and Marbella, and underground lo-fi bands in Granada and Málaga.
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.
