Carmen sits alone with her late husband, Mario, for the last time and looks back on their marriage and years together.

This is a definitive study of a major intellectual movement of nineteenth-century Spain. The 'harmonic rationalism' of the German Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781-1832), a philosophy dedicated to an ideal of universal brotherhood, had an unexpectedly powerful influence upon Spanish history, politics, education and literature in the late nineteenth century and beyond. Concerned primarily with the phase in which this all-embracing movement appears most homogeneous - between the revolution of 1854 and the early days of the Restoration - Professor Lopez-Morillas clearly outlines the Krausist doctrine and its relevance to Spain, particularly in the contexts of attitudes towards Germany and France. Because of the failure of the Enlightenment to establish any real roots in Spain and the political repression that delayed and weakened the Romantic revolt, the Spanish intellectual and political climate of the time was receptive to a philosophy that combined rationalism and idealism with social reform.

This enthralling story of survival is the first major narrative of the exploration of North America by Europeans (1528-36). The author of "Castaways" ("Naufragios"), Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was a fortune-seeking nobleman and the treasurer of an expedition to claim for Spain a vast area that includes today's Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. A shipwreck forced him and a handful of men to make the long westward journey on foot to meet up with Hernan Cortes.
In order to survive, Cabeza de Vaca joined native peoples along the way, learning their languages and practices and serving them as a slave and later as a physician. When after eight years he finally reached the West, he was not recognized by his compatriots.
In his writing Cabeza de Vaca displays great interest in the cultures of the native peoples he encountered on his odyssey. As he forged intimate bonds with some of them, sharing their brutal living conditions and curing their sick, he found himself on a voyage of self-discovery that was to make his reunion with his fellow Spaniards less joyful than expected.
Cabeza de Vaca's gripping narrative is a trove of ethnographic information, with descriptions and interpretations of native cultures that make it a powerful precursor to modern anthropology. Frances M. Lopez-Morillas's translation beautifully captures the sixteenth-century original. Based as it is on Enrique Pupo-Walker's definitive critical edition, it promises to become the authoritative English translation.