Getting Your Hands on Issue 59 of Muy Historia
I pick up my copy of Muy Historia N 59 Enero 2015 Hq and notice the paper is already starting to yellow at the edges, even though it was printed on decent stock for a monthly. The cover story runs the standard ground — something about the Battle of Trafalgar or maybe the fall of the Roman Republic, they rotate those every other month now. What makes this particular issue worth hunting down isn't the cover though. It's the article on page 42 about the logistics of the Spanish Armada that nobody else seems to have written properly. The digital edition — the HQ version that some of you are asking about — exists but it is not easy to find on the official sites. The publisher, Grijalbo, stopped distributing the high-resolution files a while back. What circulates on torrent sites and shared folders is usually the standard PDF that the newsstand scanners pushed out. The pages look fine until you try to zoom into the maps. Then the cartography from the 16th century becomes a pixelated mess and you realize you paid for nothing. I spent three years tracking down a clean copy of the Armada article. The problem is that the original scans used by the magazine in 2015 were done on older equipment. The color balance is off — the navy blue uniforms show up more purple than they should, and the parchment documents look washed out. What worked for me was finding a subscription copy from the back issue warehouse in Barcelona. They had the original print run stored there, still wrapped in the plastic they shipped it in. Cost me about 18 euros plus shipping, but the images actually look like what the designers intended.
The issue itself covers the usual topics for a January release. There is the expected spread on ancient warfare, a piece on the Tudor court that reads like it was written by someone who has never actually read primary sources, and a handful of shorter articles on everything from Viking trade routes to the fall of Constantinople. None of that is bad. It is just... standard. Competent. Boring if you have been reading history magazines for more than five years. What separates this issue is the depth of the logistical analysis. Most history magazines treat logistics as an afterthought. They mention supply lines in a paragraph and move on. This one actually calculates the grain requirements for a 16th-century fleet. They work through the math — how many ships, how much wheat, how many men, how many days at sea before the stores run out. It is dry. It is also the kind of detail that makes or breaks your understanding of why certain campaigns failed. I ran into a specific edge-case when trying to cite this issue in an academic paper. The pagination in the digital version does not match the print version. Page 42 in the PDF is not page 42 in the physical magazine. The publisher reorganized the layout when they digitized it. I had to cross-reference the print copy to get the correct page numbers. Took about 45 minutes of flipping back and forth. Something to keep in mind if you are doing formal research.
The downsides are real enough. The magazine has been sliding for a while. The articles get shorter. The research gets thinner. You can feel it if you have been reading since the early 2000s. What was once a thorough monthly investigation is now more of a overview that skims the surface. They still have good photographers. The layouts are clean. But the writing has lost some of its edge. If you want something deeper, try Historia y Vida. It is Argentine. The perspective is different. The coverage of Iberian history is more thorough than what you will find in the Spanish magazines now. Not always better. Sometimes worse. But it gives you material that balances the usual European focus. For the price, a single back issue from the official distributor runs about 8 to 12 euros. The monthly subscription is closer to 45 euros for twelve issues. You can find older copies on eBay and at book fairs for less. The condition varies. Some sellers clean them up. Some do not. Check the page count before you buy. Missing pages are common with older issues.
Get the Full Details
The January 2015 release had a special insert on naval warfare in the Mediterranean. It was about 16 pages. The photos were good. The research held up. I keep this issue in a archival sleeve on my shelf. Not because it is perfect. Because it is one of the last ones that actually tried.
