Asturian-American Migration Forum

This is a nice surprise! Hugh Thomas has just released a book about Asturias, some 250 pages long, half travel book and half history essay. Asturian media have remarked the event, as usual.
http://blogs.elboomeran.com/fogel/2006/ ... s_en_.html

Hombre, Mouguías, cuánto tiempo! Te echábamos de menos.

Todavía no leí ese libro. Lo estuve buscando precisamente en Amazon, a ver si existía en inglés, pero parece que no. No deja de ser raro, dado que el habla bastante mal español y le tiene que costar más trabajo que escribirlo primero en inglés.

De todos modos con Hugh Thomas hay que tener mucho cuidado, escribe mucha ficción disfrazada de historia. Su descripción de la llegada de Carlos V a Asturias (creo que fue en "El imperio español") es cuanto menos pintoresca, por no decir inventada de cabo a rabo. Incluso llega a decir que venía acompañado de la princesa Elena (!), quien le hizo una tortilla francesa para cenar aquella noche y otras sandeces semejantes.
Este hombre no parece verificar nada de lo que escribe su equipo de becarios y luego añade florituras de su propia cosecha para hacer sus libros más comerciales.

Espero que, por una vez, no haya hecho lo mismo con su libro sobre Asturias.
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Hey Mouguías, long time no see! We've been missing you.

I haven't read that book yet, but I've been looking for it in Amazon, to see if there's an English version available, but apparently there is none.

At all events you have to read Hugh Thomas with some detachment, he writes some incredible fiction disguised as history. His description of Charles V's arrival to Asturias (I believe it was in his book "The Spanish Empire") is picturesque, to say the least, if not entirely made up. He writes, for instance, that the young Charles came with princess Elena (!), who made him an omelette for dinner that night and other such nonsense.
This man doesn't seem to verify anything his interns write and then adds some some personal flourishing touches to the text to make the book more commercial.
I hope that, for once, he has not done that in his book about Asturias.

What do Asturians think of Hugh Thomas' book on the Spanish Civil War? Is it respected?

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¿Qué piensan asturianos sobre el libro de Hugh Thomas sobre la guerra civil española? ¿Lo aprecian?

Hi all! Art, really I don`t know much on the civil war or the controversies about it. I always feel at a loss in the subject, both sides exposing always convincing reasons which they apparently can support on heaps of documents. I eventually bought "Carta de Asturias", however, and must say Terechu was 100% right. The man has no idea on the country and hardly checks any piece of information. The worst that can be said about the book is that, well, it has no plan. Thomas gathers little news about Asturias and stumbles back and forth, without any recognisable thesis or thread to keep the book together. What does he have to say about Asturias, after all, that goes beyond the cliches of any redneck column writer in La Nueva España?

Thanks for the review, Mouguias. Thomas seems to be a lazy researcher. That's too bad.

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Gracias por la reseña, Mouguias. Parece que Thomas es un investigador perezoso. Es una lastima.