I would not be able to say, without failing in sincerity (and therefore in the first duty of historiography), that I share in and subscribe to all the conclusions and generalizations of Professor Chapman about the contemporary history and present condition of Spain. At times my dissent would not be more than one of the mere shade of meaning, perhaps from the form of expression, given to an act which, according as it is presented, is, or is not, exact. But in general I believe that Professor Chapman sees modern Spain correctly, and does us justice in many things in which it is not frequent that we are accorded that consideration. This alone would indeed be a great merit in our eyes and would deserve our applause. The English-speaking public will have a guarantee, through this work, of being able to contemplate a quite faithful portrait of Spain, instead of a caricature drawn in ignorance of the facts or in bad faith. With this noble example of historiographical calm, Professor Chapman amply sustains one of the most sympathetic notes which, with relation to the work of Spain in America, has for some years been characteristic, that which we should indeed call the school of North American historians. RAFAEL ALTAMIRA. February, 1918. A HISTORY OF SPAIN CHAPTER I THE INFLUENCE OF GEOGRAPHY ON THE HISTORY OF SPAIN [Sidenote: Isolation of the Iberian Peninsula.] The Iberian Peninsula, embracing the modern states of Spain and Portugal, is entirely surrounded by the waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, except for a strip in the north a little less than three hundred miles in length, which touches the southern border of France. Even at that point Spain is almost completely shut off from the rest of Europe, because of the high range of the Pyrenees Mountains. Portugal, although an independent state and set apart to a certain extent by a mountainous boundary, cannot be said to be geographically distinct from Spain. Indeed, many regions in Spain are quite as separate from each other as is Portugal from the Spanish lands she borders upon. Until the late medieval period, too, the history of Portugal was in the same current as that of the peninsula as a whole. [Sidenote: Mountains and plateaus.]