3 de julio de 1898

We usually approach history from long arcs of time. But what happens if, for once, we focus our attention on the specific moments that have most marked our collective past? The protagonists, their actions, their emotions, their desires, their doubts and their mistakes go to the center of the story, burst with the force of unpredictability, and we relive them as if it were the first time. In this new collection, some of the best historians show us that nothing can be taken for granted, and how certain events can leave a deep trace in a country. On July 3, 1898, the brief and disastrous battle of Santiago (343 dead, 151 wounded, 1,889 prisoners, and 6 ships stranded or sunk on the Spanish side; one dead, two wounded, and no American ship sunk) certified the Spanish defeat in The war in Cuba marked the end of the Spanish Empire and plunged the country into a crisis that would define the 20th century. The Disaster of '98, as Professor Pérez Vejo shows in this illuminating book, is more an idea than a date, and allows so many readings that it is not an exaggeration to say that it contains almost all the keys to the contemporary history of Spain.