By: Mark Kurlansky
Narrated by: George Guidall
Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins

My interest in the Basque people began years ago when I learned that their language is a true isolate. For a long time that was all I knew. Later I came to appreciate that they have maintained their unique language and culture while living at the crossroads of powerful civilizations such as Carthage, Rome, the Moors, Spain, and France. I picked up this book hoping to gain more insight into how they managed such resilience, although I recognized it might not fully answer that question.

What I found was a wealth of anecdotes and details that added to my understanding of how the Basques persisted through millennia. The deeper “how and why” of their endurance remains largely unanswered, which was not surprising, but the stories themselves vividly illustrated their survival.

The second half focuses more on modern history. That makes sense given the available records, although it was not exactly what I was hoping for. Still, there were fascinating sections on Basque smuggling, an activity shaped by their geography in the borderlands. The account of smuggling during World War II, when France was under German occupation, was especially engaging. The narrative then moves to Franco’s dictatorship, when the Basques suffered significant oppression, and finally to their modern struggles as they adapted to life in an industrialized world.

Overall, it was a decent book, informative in many places, although not quite excellent.