Barcelona

Barcelona, known as the "Great Enchantress", has become one of Europe's most fashionable tourist destinations. Its attractions combine new and old. In this book, Michael Eaude explains how and why it has tempted so many, and inspired so much great art and literature. While celebrating Barcelona's obvious attractions - her decadent Chinatown, the spectacle of the Ramblas, her Art Nouveau buildings - Eaude goes deep beneath its burnished facade. Before its regeneration in the 1990s, Barcelona was as dangerous and debauched as any city in Europe. This book weaves history with culture, evoking Barcelona's emblematic artists and writers - foreign and native - to explain the extraordinary pull she has held over Europe's creative imagination.