Rock of Contention : A History of Gibraltar

Hills, George

ISBN 10: 0709143524 / ISBN 13: 9780709143529

Published by The Crowood Press, 1974

Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # GRP10302977

Synopsis:

At the very least a hundred thousand Europeans, Africans and Asians have fallen in war at or around Gibraltar over the past 700 years. The records of the discussions over the possession of Gibraltar during the last three centuries run to millions upon millions of words. For close on 200 years Christendom struggled with Islam over this Rock: Islamic princes, when not fighting Christians, battled among themselves for it, and a Spanish Grandee tried to hold on to it against his Sovereign after Islam had been dislodged from Western Europe. Gibraltar, to Islam the gateway to Western Europe, to Spain the key to a North African empire, was judged by seventeenth-century England to be the key both to Mediterranean trade and to superiority over France at sea. Britain failed to get it then but did so early in the eighteenth: and Britain's acquisition was a principal cause of the century of wars which followed. In between one war and the next, British, French, Spanish and other statesmen discussed at length its retention by Britain or restitution to Spain by negotiation. It became the hub of most devious international diplomacy in furtherance not only of the imperial policies of nations but also of the personal power of politicians over their own countrymen. The discussions continued into the nineteenth century and, notoriously, continue today. This history of Gibraltar gives a more comprehensive and analytical account than any hitherto of all these and other facets of the contention engendered by that Rock through the ages. It is based to an unprecedented extent on Arabic and Spanish primary sources for the earlier period, and English, French, German and Spanish for the later. It describes the military operations at or around Gibraltar from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century in themselves and in the context of the greater wars of which they were a part. It deals similarly with the international discussions over its ownership from the seventeenth century to the present day, that is to say in themselves and in the context of the international and national politics of the time. With all this it does not neglect the history of the inhabitants of Gibraltar past and present. On numerous important points this book will be found to be at variance with both Spanish and British predecessors on the subject, in which primary sources have been ignored, quoted out of context, or more simply misunderstood. Unlike the overwhelming majority of them, it has not been written in support of any party to the continuing dispute over Britain's possession of this tiny peninsula.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Rock of Contention : A History of Gibraltar
Publisher: The Crowood Press
Publication Date: 1974
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good