The Basque History of the World

The Story of a Nation

By Mark Kurlansky

We're going back to Donostia in a couple weeks, and I thought it would make sense to check out some history from the region. It always comes back to Joshua Foer's Moonwalking with Einsteinobservation that the more you know, the more you remember. I thought it was great - though a little bias toward the Basques (which was also reflected in reviews of the book elsewhere). Still, as usual with books like this, I was pretty surprised with the magnitude of things I was totally unaware of. Anyway, a few of the things I managed to remember...

Basque folks have the highest (by a lot) concentration of type-O (RH negative) blood in the world. Because of blood type mismatches, babies without similar characteristics are often miscarried (or at least were, pre WWII before modern medicine), which acted as a natural way to preserve this very pure bloodline.
There's a a tree in Guernika of immense cultural importance that has stood for hundreds of years. I want to go see it in person. It looks pretty epic.
The USA gave soft support to Basque nationalists (who, fought against Franco and Hitler in WWII) but then the USA betrayed them during cold war, when Franco came out as anti-communist.<
Franco ran a fascist regime until the mid 1970s - holy crap. I "kinda/sorta" knew that - I mean, had I seen that on a multiple choice question I think I would have gotten the right answer... but had I had to write an essay about "Which current eurozone country had a radical fascist dictator until the mid 1970s and an unstable government pretty much until you finished high school?" .. well ... let's just say the odds wouldn't have been in my favor.
ETA seems like a very interesting organization, I'd really like to know more about them. This book seemed very pro-Basque, (and pro-ETA), so I'd certainly be interested in hearing the other side. Obviously it's a really complicated situation. ETA killed people... though they also seemed pretty instrumental to ending the Franco regime... and since the late '90s have vowed against using violence to affect change.
To be considered a Basque citizen, you don't need any heritage or bloodlines from the region. To be Basque is simply to be fluent in both their language and culture. I love that.
It is legit hilarious that the author of Cod and Salt would write this book next.