After Empire: Modern Spain in the 20th Century

Catalog description

This course situates 20th-century Spain at the crossroads of postcolonialism, ideological violence, and contested modernization. Spain entered the century amidst a profound national identity crisis, stirred by its defeat in the Cuban Independence War. Over the next decades, conflict erupted among advocates of different visions of Spain, while the rise of mass politics transformed Spain in the first battleground in the global confrontation between fascism, communism, and liberalism. General Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War installed an authoritarian regime lasting four decades whose legacies marked Spain’s transition into the current democratic system and its problematic relationship with discontented sectors.