Interrogating Francoism: History and Dictatorship in Twentieth-Century Spain

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Helen Graham here brings together leading historians of international renown to examine 20th-century Spain in light of Francos dictatorship and its legacy. Interrogating Francoism uses a three-part structure to look at the old regime, the civil war and the forging of Francoism; the nature of Francos dictatorship; and the history wars that have since taken place over his legacy. Social, political, economic and cultural historical approaches are integrated throughout and top down political analysis is incorporated along with bottom up social perspectives. The book places Spain and Francoism in comparative European context and explores the relationship between the historical debates and present-day political and ideological controversies in Spain. In part a tribute to Paul Preston, the foremost historian of contemporary Spain today, Interrogating Francoism includes an interview with Professor Preston and a comprehensive bibliography of his work, as well as extensive further readings in English. It is a crucial volume for all students of 20th-century Spain.

Reviews

A first-rate collection of wide-ranging yet coherently integrated essays ... The volume covers much of 20th century Spanish history, coherently inserts Spains past into the European framework and engages with current historiographical debates. It will be useful not only to undergraduate and postgraduate students but also to all those interested in Spains difficult past and convulsive present. It certainly deserves a wide readership. * International Brigade Memorial Trust Magazine *
Offers a fresh critique of the historiography of the Franco regime ... authoritative and incisive, the arguments posited in this volume could not be more propitious. A volume to pore over and return to over time has resoundingly achieved its original premise, to debunk myths through nuanced reflection and rigorous assessment. And to encourage future historians to take up the challenge to participate in this live dialogue with the present. * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *
An impressive team of contributors, with exceptional offerings from representatives of the new generation of historians of contemporary Spain. The book offers fresh insights into Spains first democracy and the civil war that destroyed it. In the face of attempts, both in Spain and abroad, to sanitise Francos subsequent dictatorship, this volume highlights once again the regimes brutality and its enduring cultural and political legacies for twenty-first century Spain. This is a fitting tribute to the most recognised historian of contemporary Spain. * Gareth Stockey, Lecturer in Spanish Studies, University of Nottingham, UK *
Interrogating Francoism is a fine, authoritative collection of essays that shed light on what the excellent editor, Helen Graham, calls 'Europe's most successful and adaptive dictatorial culture'. Wide-ranging yet coherent, the book spans the crisis of modernisation out of which the dictatorship and its repressed alternative emerged, and the resurgent contemporary nationalism that continues to justify the crimes of the dictatorship, or at least to invalidate the Republic. This volume deserves a much wider readership than Spanish specialists alone because it tells us so very much about Europe entire, and the story is not a pretty one. * Donald Bloxham, Richard Pares Professor of History, University of Edinburgh, UK *
Over the past forty years Professor Paul Preston, through his own impressive body of publications and those of his Anglo-Spanish army of former doctoral students, has become the focus of a veritable Preston school of historical scholarship on twentieth-century Spain. This distinguished collective volume, ably edited by Professor Helen Graham, is an altogether fitting tribute to an outstanding career , offering as it does work of range, rigour and Prestonian conviction. As an analysis of Francoisms roots, nature and baleful legacy it constitutes a devastating corrective to the currently fashionable effusions of Spanish revisionists. Its dedicatee could not have asked for more. * Martin Blinkhorn, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Lancaster, UK *
This compelling volume is worthy of Paul Preston's four decades of groundbreaking historical research on twentieth-century Spain. The contributors' essays present significant new work on topics as wide-ranging as the role of the Catholic Church and the persistence of Francoist patterns of thought and behavior long after the dictator's death. More important, this book underscores--as Preston has for forty years--three important insights: that Spain's history cannot be understood separate from its European context; that, conversely, historians of Europe cannot relegate Spain to the margins of their narrative; and, finally, that a proper understanding of the way in which the political and cultural tensions of the 1930s played out in Spain during the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship continues to have great relevance as Europe is facing one of its most challenging moments in recent history. * Sebastiaan Faber, Professor of Hispanic Studies, Oberlin College, USA *

Author Bio

Helen Graham is Professor of Modern European History at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. She is the author of The Spanish Republic at War (2003), The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction (2005) and The War and its Shadow: Spains Civil War in Europes Long Twentieth Century (2012).