EL PAÍS

The battle over the colonial legacy in Mexico: ‘Shadow theater for political gain’

David Marcial Pérez , Federico Simón Pérez — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000

If history is a volcano and memory is lava, “some experiences pour into one’s body like fiery lava and congeal there. From that moment on, they can be recalled, immovably, at all times and unchanged.” The quote from German historian Reinhart Koselleck, in which he calls upon his experience as a Nazi soldier to examine his country’s traumas, does a good job of synthesizing the dilemmas that stack up upon looking at the past and reviewing, many decades or centuries later, historical facts with the eyes of the present.

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The Spanish Reconquest and the Battle of Covadonga: When myths contaminate history

Federico Simón Pérez — Sun, 11 Aug 2024 04:05:00 +0000

Tariq ibn Ziyad, in command of the troops of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, arrived on the shores of Hispania in 711. The Visigothic kingdom was divided and, after a resounding victory against the forces of King Rodrigo in the battle of Guadalete (of disputed location), they advanced in just a decade through almost the entire Iberian Peninsula. Despite the scarcity of contemporary historical sources and aside from some conspiracy theories (such as that the conqueror would be Visigoth and called Taric), the invasion was consummated at that time and the experts agree on those facts: it is History.

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Steeplechase racing rides into Madrid

Federico Simón Pérez — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:34:40 +0000

Román Martín Arranz, 22, is an amateur jockey. But due to his physique - 60 kilograms inside a 1.83m frame - he fears he will never ride professionally, as his grandfather and namesake Román Martín once did. He was one of Spain's legendary riders.

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How the Popular Party sank Canal 9

Federico Simón Pérez — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:18:56 +0000

Spain's regional governments have a lot to answer for given their role in the country's financial crisis. Not only were regional authorities largely responsible for political interference in the local savings banks - the cajas- thus contributing to their demise, but they also ran up their own unsustainable debts, using publicly funded regional broadcasters as mere extensions of their parties' communications departments.

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