Spain's position on Europe's south-western corner has exposed it to cultural, political and actual winds blowing from all quadrants. Africa lies a mere nine miles to the south. The Mediterranean connects it to the civilizational currents of Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians, and Byzantines as well as the Arabic lands of the near east. Bronze Age migrants from the Russian steppe were amongst the first to arrive. They would be followed by Visigoths, Arabs, Napoleonic armies and many more invaders and immigrants. Circular winds and currents linked it to the American continent, allowing Spain to conquer and colonize much of it. As a result, Spain has developed a sort of hybrid vigour. Whenever it has tried to deny this inevitable heterogeneity, it has required superhuman effort to fashion a 'pure' national identity – which has proved impossible to maintain. In España, Giles Tremlett argues that, in fact, that lack of a homogenous identity is Spain's defining trait.

A many-tangented pilgrimage through ten centuries of Spain's history, its politics, its art, literature and architecture, its climate and its people, in which Nooteboom unlocks doors to an undiscovered Spain and reveals his obsession for a country he has come to know intimately over the course of forty years.

Despite being relatively brief, this very readable history covers environmental, political, social, economic, cultural and artistic elements, and is very open to regional variations and to the extent that the history of the peninsula and of its political groupings was far from inevitable. Its tone is accessible, supported by boxes providing supplemental information, and is perfect for travellers to Spain.