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The Struggle for Catalonia

Rebel Politics in Spain

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The Struggle for Catalonia

By: Raphael Minder
Narrated by: Andrew Oakes
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About this listen

In 2012 on Catalonia's National Day, the Diada, an enormous crowd calling for Catalan independence took over the heart of Barcelona. On the back of this show of force, Catalonia's governing politicians turned secessionist claims into a new headache for a Madrid government only just recovering from the near-meltdown of Spain's financial system.

Five years on, the separatist challenge has neither come to fruition nor faded away. The Struggle for Catalonia looks at how and why Catalan separatism reached the top of Spain's political agenda as well as its connection to the broader European malaise generated by flawed political responses to financial and other crises.

Through extensive travel and reporting as well as dozens of interviews with leading Catalan personalities, Raphael Minder gives a cultural history of the region, showing how the reshaping of Catalan identity is being played out everywhere, from football clubs to the world of haute cuisine.

©2017 Raphael Minder (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Europe Political Science Politics & Government Spain World Latin American Socialism Portugal Africa
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A good quick run through of recent history let down by the narration. I'd put this down to the producer because Mr Oakes is clearly a talented voice actor. But the pronunciation is frequently "off" in Spanish, Catalan and even French. Accurate guidance to the narrator would have assisted greatly.

Good overview of recent Catalan history

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As a supporter of Scottish independence I’ve taken an interest in other similar movements.

The book was pretty thorough going into a lot of the recent history of Catalonia and Spain (taking us up until roughly a few months before their referendum in late 2017) with the author talking to a wide variety of people and making their stories and perspectives clear. I will say it felt like he didn’t talk about or to very many far left voices, just mentioning anarchists in passing and not expanding on either that history or present (although I will allow that that may be my bias and not his).

As I said I was coming at this from a Scottish perspective and Scotland comes up as a counter point occasionally, for the most part the author made fair observations but sometimes he got it very wrong (he says at one point Westminster didn’t really care if Scotland stayed or went, which from my point of view seems downright ignorant) I’m not sure if this speaks to the author’s inaccuracy or just that Scotland wasn’t his focus. but it was still interesting to hear an outside perspective.

It was very interesting to see the similarities and the differences between the movements and as I said above a lot of history is involved so it’s well worth a listen.

Very interesting!

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I was looking forward to listening as I'm on holiday in Catalonia however, the language is so off putting I've had to give it a miss. Describing 'violent anarchists' (nothing happened at the diada in questions) and 'left wing militants', please, please will these rich, privileged, so charmed by themselves "journalists" just take one day off their nonsense.

The reading is also quite monotone so buckle up to give it your absolute attention.

told from a point of privilege

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