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Straddling a small corner of Spain and France in a land that is marked on no maps except their own, the Basques are a puzzling contradiction-they are Europe's oldest nation without ever having been a country. No one has ever been able to determine their origins, and even the Basques' language, Euskera-the most ancient in Europe-is related to none other on earth. For centuries, their influence has been felt in nearly every realm, from religion to sports to commerce. Even today, the Basques are enjoying what may be the most important cultural renaissance in their long existence.

Mark Kurlansky's passion for the Basque people and his exuberant eye for detail shine throughout this fascinating book. Like Cod, The Basque History of the World blends human stories with economic, political, literary, and culinary history into a rich and heroic tale.

Among the Basques' greatest accomplishments:

• Exploration-the first man to circumnavigate the globe, Juan Sebastián de Elcano, was a Basque and the Basques were the second Europeans, after the Vikings, in North America

• Gastronomy and agriculture-they were the first Europeans to eat corn and chili peppers and cultivate tobacco, and were among the first to use chocolate

• Religion-Ignatius Loyola, a Basque, founded the Jesuit religious order

• Business and politics-they introduced capitalism and modern commercial banking to southern Europe

• Recreation-they invented beach resorts, jai alai, and racing regattas, and were the first Europeans to play sports with balls

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A central concept in Basque identity is belonging, not only to the Basque people but to a house, known in the Basque language as etxea. Etxea or echea is one of the most common roots of Basque surnames. Etxaberria means “new house,” Etxazarra means “old house,” Etxaguren is “the far side of the house,” Etxarren means “stone house.” There are dozens of these last names referring to ancestral rural houses. The name Javier comes from Xavier or Xabier, short for Etxaberria.

And so they also have their own black cherry, the xapata from Itxassou, which only bears fruit for a few weeks in June but is so productive during those weeks that a large surplus is saved in the form of preserves. The cherry preserve-filled cakes were sold in the market in Bayonne, a city celebrated for its chocolate makers, who eventually started buying Itxassou black cherries to dip in chocolate.

Today in most of France and Spain a gâteau Basque is cream filled, but the closer to the valley of the Nivelle, the more likely it is to be cherry filled.

When asked for the antique recipe for her family’s gâteau Basque, Jeanine Pereuil smiled bashfully and said, “You know, people keep offering me a lot of money for this recipe.”

How much do they offer?

“I don’t know. I’m not going to bargain. I will never give out the recipe. If I sold the recipe, the house would vanish. And this is the house of my father and his father. I am keeping their house. And I hope my daughter will do the same for me.”

Within this small space are seven Basque provinces. Four provinces are in Spain and have Basque and Spanish names: Nafaroa or Navarra, Gipuzkoa or Guipúzcoa, Bizkaia or Vizcaya, and Araba or Alava. Three are in France and have Basque and French names: Lapurdi or Labourd, Benafaroa or Basse Navarre, and Zuberoa or Soule. An old form of Basque nationalist graffiti is “4 + 3 = 1.”

Twenty-seven percent of Basques have O Rh negative blood. Rh negative blood in a pregnant woman can fatally poison a fetus that has positive blood. Since World War II, intervention techniques to save the fetus have been developed, but it is probable that throughout history, the rate of miscarriage and stillborn births among the Basques was extremely high, which may be one of the reasons they remained a small population on a limited amount of land while other populations, especially in Iberia, grew rapidly.

In Europe, this heroic struggle has long been an essential underpinning of both nationalism and racism. The idea that Basques were in their European mountains, speaking their own indigenous European language, long before the French and the Spanish, is disturbing to French and Spanish nationalists. Unless the Basques can be shown to be from somewhere else, the Spanish and French are transformed into the Moorish role—outside invaders imposing an alien culture. From the sixteenth century on, historians receiving government salaries in Madrid wrote histories that deliberately minimized the possibility of indigenous Basques.

书籍介绍

Straddling a small corner of Spain and France in a land that is marked on no maps except their own, the Basques are a puzzling contradiction-they are Europe's oldest nation without ever having been a country. No one has ever been able to determine their origins, and even the Basques' language, Euskera-the most ancient in Europe-is related to none other on earth. For centuries, their influence has been felt in nearly every realm, from religion to sports to commerce. Even today, the Basques are enjoying what may be the most important cultural renaissance in their long existence.

Mark Kurlansky's passion for the Basque people and his exuberant eye for detail shine throughout this fascinating book. Like Cod, The Basque History of the World blends human stories with economic, political, literary, and culinary history into a rich and heroic tale.

Among the Basques' greatest accomplishments:

• Exploration-the first man to circumnavigate the globe, Juan Sebastián de Elcano, was a Basque and the Basques were the second Europeans, after the Vikings, in North America

• Gastronomy and agriculture-they were the first Europeans to eat corn and chili peppers and cultivate tobacco, and were among the first to use chocolate

• Religion-Ignatius Loyola, a Basque, founded the Jesuit religious order

• Business and politics-they introduced capitalism and modern commercial banking to southern Europe

• Recreation-they invented beach resorts, jai alai, and racing regattas, and were the first Europeans to play sports with balls