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Américo Castro Quesada (May 4, 1885 – July 25, 1972) was a Spanish culturalhistorian,philologist, andliterary critic who challenged some of the prevailing notions of Spanish identity, raising controversy with his conclusions thatSpaniards did not become the distinct group that they are today until after theIslamic conquest of Hispania of 711, an event that turned them into an Iberian caste co-existing amongMoors andJews, and that the history of Spain andPortugal was adversely affected with the success in the 11th to the 15th centuries of the "Reconquista" or Christian reconquest of theIberian Peninsula and with theSpanish expulsion of the Jews (1492).
Castro was born to Spanish parents on May 4, 1885, inCantagalo,Rio de Janeiro,Brazil. In 1890, his parents returned with him to Spain. In 1904 he graduated from theUniversity of Granada, going on to study at theSorbonne inParis from 1905 to 1907. After returning to Spain he organized the Center for Historical Studies inMadrid in 1910 and headed its department oflexicography. In 1915, he became a professor at theUniversity of Madrid.
Later, when theSpanish Republic was declared, Castro became its first ambassador toGermany in 1931. However, when theSpanish Civil War broke out in 1936, he moved to theUnited States, where he taught literature at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison from 1937 to 1939, at theUniversity of Texas from 1939 to 1940 and atPrinceton University from 1940 to 1953.
Among Castro's most notable scholarly works areThe Life of Lope de Vega (1919);Language, Teaching, and Literature (1924);The Thought of Cervantes (1925);Ibero-America, Its Present and Its Past (1941);The Spaniards: an Introduction to their History (1948);The Structure of Spanish History (1954); andOut of the State of Conflict (1961).
