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superior men saved him from total
cynicism.
Gracián's
El criticón
has been compared
with earlier and subsequent works of Euro-
pean literature, sometimes on minor points
of resemblance, such as Defoe's
Robinson Cru-
soe,
and sometimes on a broader scale, par-
ticularly in the structure and satirical
viewpoint of Voltaire's
Candide.
The 19th-
century German philosopher Arthur Scho-
penhauer was so impressed by
El criticón
that
he declared it the best book ever written. In
the late 20th-century United States, how-
ever, it was the earlier writings of Gracián
that were deemed worthy of revival, when
an English-language version,
The Art of
Worldly Wisdom,
was put together as a manual
for successful politicians and businessmen.
Granada
Among the cities of A
NDALUSIA
Granada
occupies a special place. Capital of the
Moorish kingdom of the same name, she
was the last stronghold of Muslim Spain.
After falling to the armies of F
ERDINAND
V
and I
SABELLA
I in 1492 Granada lost its
Muslim and Jewish populations and over
subsequent centuries became known chiefly
as a picturesque setting for the monuments
of a bygone era. The American writer Wash-
ington Irving, in his
Tales of the Alhambra,
made this fabled palace of long-vanished
sultans a reference point for the English-
speaking world. The Spanish writer F
ED
-
ERICO
G
ARCÍA
L
ORCA
(slain in 1936 at the
beginning of the S
PANISH
CIVIL
WAR
) brought
a new visibility to his native city. Granada
has preserved a sense of its history and
mystery in a way unmatched by any other
place in Spain.
Pool in front of the Alhambra in Granada
(Getty)
Granada, conquest of
The struggle for mastery in Iberia that had
begun with the Muslim invasion of 711
continued with varying degrees of intensity
until the early 13th century, by which time
a number of independent Christian king-
doms had established themselves on the
Iberian Peninsula. Muslim control had been
reduced to the extreme south, roughly
equivalent to the old Caliphate of C
ÓRDOBA
.
From approximately 1232 to 1492, the
kingdom of G
RANADA
constituted the last
surviving Muslim state. During this period
of more than two centuries C
ASTILE
and
A
RAGON
(with occasional interference by
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