Iberian

The Iberian tradition covers Spain and Portugal — and, by linguistic extension, the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries that grew out of the early-modern Iberian expansion. We cover it as a European tradition: its Roman foundations, its Visigothic and Suebic early-medieval period, the centuries of Al-Andalus and the Reconquista, the Golden Age, and the contemporary life of the Iberian peninsula. We do not cover Latin America as Iberian content; those nations have their own publications, their own traditions, and their own stewards.

What the Iberian tradition produced on its own home ground is distinctive. The medieval cohabitation of Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim communities (the convivencia) produced philosophy and translation work that carried Aristotle back into Latin Christendom. The Reconquista produced the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies and the regional cultures of Galicia, Catalonia, Andalusia, and the Algarve. The Golden Age produced Cervantes, Velázquez, the Spanish polyphonists, and a vernacular literature that still anchors the language. The twentieth century produced the great recovery from the guerra civil and a contemporary cultural life — film, gastronomy, design — that has quietly become one of Europe’s most confident.

We cover medieval and early-modern Iberia, the Golden Age, the regional cultures, the language and literature, and the present-day cultural life of Spain and Portugal.