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In this scholarly work, Zirakzadeh argues that there is a calculated reasoning behind ETA's political violence that is often overlooked by researchers. His book is a comprehensive account of the Basque region's grassroots politics.

Nevada sheep rancher Joe Juaristi spoke for years about making a trip back to the Spanish Basque Country that he left sixty years earlier, but each time the subject came up the discussion evolved into a family debate about the scope and members of the journey. Finally Joe's son, Vince, secretly resolved to organize the trip that his father wanted and needed--the two of them, traveling alone, making a quiet reunion with Joe's twin sister, who suffers from Alzheimer's, visiting other aging siblings and friends, and recounting the places that formed Joe's memories of his youth.

Back to Bizkaia is part travel book, part memoir of two men exploring their mutual roots and their unique father-son bond. The narrative intertwines an engaging account of the contemporary Basque Country with Joe's experiences as an immigrant making his way in a new country and Vince's memories of growing up in a close Basque-American community in the American West. This is a book about Basques and their American families, but on another level it is every immigrant's story of return to a beloved homeland.

Gloria P. Totoricagüena presents a thorough comparative examination of the remarkable endurance of Basque identity and culture in six countries of the far-flung Basque diaspora. Using the results of interviews and extensive anonymous surveys with more than eight hundred informants in the diaspora, plus extensive research in archives and printed sources in all six of her study countries, Totoricagüena reveals for the first time the complex and interrelated universe of these dispersed Basques. She explores the elements of their migration patterns and the institutions that have encouraged identity maintenance, the impacts on established communities of each new wave of immigrants, and the nature of economic and political ties with the homeland.

Totoricagüena offers a superb quantitative study of an aspect of Basque culture that has been largely ignored by scholars—the diaspora. In doing so, she enlarges the understanding of cultural identity in general—how it is defined and preserved, how it evolves over time, and how both the politics of distant places and the most intimate family habits can shape an individual’s sense of self. Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora is a major contribution to the knowledge of Basques and their persistent political and cultural traditions.

Since the late 1960s, the Basque insurgent organization ETA (Euzkadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Freedom) has been engaged in a violent struggle against the Spanish state in an effort to gain the independence of the Basque Country. ETA violence has led to the death of hundreds of people, making the organization the most violent insurgent group in Europe. Between 1975 and 1988, nearly thirty attempts to negotiate an end to violence, with a few limited exceptions, all ended in failure. This important book examines why the efforts to negotiate have failed and makes suggestions on how to improve the chances for successful discussion in the future. Although Clark does not disprove the conventional wisdom that negotiation with terrorists is a bad idea, he does begin from the opposing point of view that there may be some positive values to be realized from such negotiation.Negotiating with ETA describes the various factions that are interested in the outcome of such negotiations and the Spanish antiterrorist policy throughout the period under examination. The book also recounts the early attempts to negotiate, the first attempt at "social reintegration," various attempts by the Basque Government to get negotiations started, negotiation efforts under the Spanish socialist government of Felipe González, and the lengthy negotiations that took place in Algeria. A wide range of scholars and specialists will find this book valuable, including those interested in contemporary Spanish politics, ethnic nationalism, Basque affairs, the problem of terrorism, and conflict resolution.

Translated by Cameron Watson and William A. Douglass. Foreword by William A. Douglass. The Basque people have preserved their ethnic identity and sense of themselves as a separate community despite centuries of repression, diaspora, and economic and social upheaval—one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of the phenomenon we call nationalism. In The Social Roots of Basque Nationalism, sociologist Alfonso Pérez-Agote addresses the social mechanisms that Basques employed to sustain their ethnic identity under the Franco Regime and demonstrates how persecution actually encouraged the extension of Basque nationalist consciousness. He also reveals how state political pressure radicalized one element of the Basque-nationalist movement, resulting in the formation of ETA, an armed terrorist wing that itself became a mechanism for extending nationalist consciousness. Finally, he examines the subsequent changes in Basque nationalism following Franco’s death and the extension of democracy in Spain, which resulted in the institutionalization of the movement into an autonomous political power. This work is based in part on interviews and polls with informants in the Basque Country and abroad, eliciting such data as the role that family, education, social contacts, and religious environment play in the evolution of political attitudes; the place of violence in the Basque world view and contemporary political culture; regional variations in Basque nationalism; and the factors that contributed to the resilience of Basque nationalism in adapting to new historical conditions. The result is a sophisticated discussion of the various ways in which Basque social reality is constituted and how this reality helps to create political culture. Because Pérez-Agote situates his discussion within the broader frameworks of ethnic identity, group dynamics, and the nature of nationalism, the book makes a significant contribution not only to our understanding of the Basques but to the broader study of the evolution of nationalism and the nation-state, political violence, and the complicated transition of any society from dictatorship to democracy.