This book celebrates one of Europe's greatest cities -- a cosmopolitan city of vibrant architecture and art, great churches and museums, intriguing port life and extravagant nightclubs, restaurants and bars. It moves from the story of the city's founding, and huge expansion in the nineteenth century, to the lives of Gaudi, Miro, Casals and Dali. It also examines the history of Catalan nationalism, the tragedy of the Civil War, the Franco years, and the transition from dictatorship to democracy which Colm Tóibín witnessed in the 1970s.