La Vida Alcalaína

Many years ago I read a book called "The Anarchists of Casas Viejas" by an American anthropologist called Jerome Mintz.  Casas Viejas was the old name for Benalup-Casas Viejas, about 15 km from Alcalá. Back in 1933 it was the scene of an event which shook the nation to the core and helped bring down the socialist government of the Second Republic. One of the key figures in that event was a young woman who went by the name "Libertaria", which piqued my romantic imagination. I vowed to find out more about her and one day write her story.  It's taken a while, but the book is now out and is available  on Amazon  worldwide, in paperback or Kindle format, at giveaway prices. The introduction to the book is reproduced below. Subsequent chapters cover the evolution of anarcho-syndicalism (also known as libertarian communism) in the area and why it was so attractive to men who could barely get enough work to feed their families; a detailed look at the events of January 1...

Alcalá has just been voted the most magical town in Andalucía (of course some of us have always known that, but now it's official).  There is no doubt that the number of visitors has increased dramatically over the last few years, especially since the Covid pandemic as more people opt for self-catering holidays in the countryside rather than crowded beach hotels. (They are easy to spot, wearing shorts in November and frowning at their phones trying to work out in which of the narrow backstreets their accommodation is.) The number of self-catering holiday lets in Alcalá has gone from two or three pre-Covid to over thirty today, as enterprising young people convert their late grandparents' abandoned dwellings into sparkling new air-conditioned apartments with fitted kitchens, hot-tubs and Ikea's finest wall art (see a list of them  here ). Of course, it's great to see semi-derelict properties restored and it provides work for local builders, but one can't help wonderi...