The folklore of Spanish America is full of exciting accounts of a wandering, shrieking, tormented spirit called La Llorona, the "Wailing Woman." Her eerie spine-chilling cry was said to be an omen of death. This is the first serious account of the frightening tale that has fascinated people for generations. Ray John de Aragón, an expert on Spanish folklore, traditions and myths, traveled throughout the villages and byways of New Mexico searching out the roots of this very popular Spanish p...

New Mexico is a land of shadow and mystery. From the old coal mines near Raton and the isolation of Isleta Pueblo to the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and beyond, ghouls and spirits lie in wait. Witches transform into vampire bats, werewolves howl and the undead rise with the light of the moon. La Llorona walks the banks of rivers and roads, her legendary and mournful cries terrifying any who cross her path. They are stories passed down by the fearless Comancheros, devoted Franci...

What does the Rosetta Stone tell us about the past? What treasures of Egyptian literature can now be read, thanks to its decipherment? What does it tell us about the history of writing and the story of our own alphabets? How do decipherments work and how can we know if they are right? Who owns the Rosetta Stone and what happens if we start to return pieces of the past to countries who claim them? These are some of the fascinating questions which are explored in this introduction to one of ...

July 1940: as Britain stood alone, the Army exhausted and defeated by the Wehrmacht and the Roval Navy, stretched worldwide, only the English Channel and the RAF remained between Britain and the expected German invasion. But the Luftwaffe's ill-prepared and last-minute assault on the RAF was met by a carefully planned system of fighter intervention, the defensive strategy devised by Hugh Dowding, Commander-in-Chief, RAF Fighter Command. Dowding fought and won Britain's most vital victory, ...

Taking a stand for equality in the Land of EnchantmentVeterans returning to New Mexico after World War II found a home altered by more than just the explosion of the first atomic bomb. Former ranchers were forced to eke out a living in zinc mines, leading to protests of conditions that were memorialized in the movie Salt of the Earth, which both the film industry and the government tried to suppress. As the civil rights movement swept across the country in the 1960s, New M...

September 1940: defeated in the Battle of Britain, despite their superior numbers and better equipped aircraft, the Luftwaffe launched a new campaign of attack, their target this time the civilian population. For eight months, with hardly a night's break, Luftwaffe bombers pounded industrial cities and seaports in a concentrated attempt to smash Britain's war economy and destroy civilian morale. It was the first time a civilian population had been subject to mass attack, night after night,...

Pull on the uncanny threads from the legendary tapestry of New Mexico's Native American heritage.Ancient Indian history and present Native American cultures are woven together in the Land of Enchantment. The threads of these tales stretch back to Mimbres burial grounds and prehistoric trade routes. Stories and traditions tie the land to its people, in spite of the cycles of slaughter and theft that have threatened to pluck them apart. Descend into the kivas of Chac...

Nine leading scholars explore some of the most important minds behind the new political economy of the American Founding and engage with the foundational work of Ralph Lerner.In his 1979 article, “Commerce and Character: The Anglo-American as New-Model Man,” Ralph Lerner argued that the American Founders and the political theorists of the commercial republic were charting a new basis for society that broke with the “old order,” which was “preoccupied with intangible goods ...

After John Ray’s experiences related in his 2018 Twenty-Five Years in Kashmir, comes this more general reflection on an eventful life. The author watched the Battle of Britain from a Surrey field as a twelve-year-old and during his schooldays cycled the length and breadth of England when unpoisoned hedgerows were still full of flowers. This was his homeland.Student years at St Andrews inspired a love of mountains, then came a ‘surprising National Service’ beside the Russian zone in Austria...

Who was Jose Rizal? As a kid, what did he do aside from studying? How did he survive with little money in Europe? What did he do when he won the lottery?Today, Jose Rizal seems to be everywhere. Yet, there is more to him than the monuments and the face etched on the one-peso coin.Learn about the curious boy who grew up to become an inspiration to a nation.---Lahat ay kayang maging bayani!Through engaging narratives that look into the lives o...

"Surprisingly lively . . . An absorbing tale about the land shenanigans that took place in New Mexico after the Mexican-American War ended in 1848." — Albuquerque JournalAt the end of the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed previous Spanish and Mexican land grants, as well as rights for Native Americans to their ancestral homelands. However, organized property theft began soon after. People were methodically dispossessed of the...

This is the first major study by a Hispano from New Mexico with intergenerational ties to the Penitentes--the deeply religious group called Hermanos de la Luz, Brothers of the Light. It also ties the santero folk art of New Mexico, the Penitente Brotherhood, and the Penitente religious hymns, alabados, together. De Aragón asserts that one cannot truly function without all three and herein lies the devotional beauty that has been passed down for generations in Spanish folk tradition.