A Concise History of Spain

Narrator Luis Soto recounts the history of Spain in a strong British-accented voice, his manner bright, brisk, and congenial. His Spanish is of native-speaker quality, although his accurate Castilian pronunciation, in which "s" sounds like "th," may give some listeners difficulty in recognizing people and place names. Soto, though intelligent and always correct in intonation and emphasis, never seems fully comfortable or relaxed, like a storyteller. Instead, he sounds somewhat stiff and self-conscious. Spain's complex past--it was almost always a conglomeration of autonomous regions with their own rulers--and a lack of maps make the history, at times, hard to follow or retain. Despite these flaws, some unavoidable, this is a professional performance and, overall, an interesting and informative history. W.M. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine