Franco's Spain

Although born during the inter-war period of Fascism, the Franco regime managed to survive into the predominantly liberal-democratic era of Western Europe after 1945. The book takes as its major theme the complex and changing relationship between the internal structures of dictatorship and civil society. A sibling of interwar Europe's other fascist regimes, Franco's Spain survived them all, growing to old age in an era of liberal democracy. It weathered the explosive social movements and student discontents of the 1960s and lingered into the 1970s, its earlier fascist ideology attenuated almost out of recognition, with simple survival its greatest preoccupation. Franco's Spain looks beyond the mythology surrounding the origins of the dictatorship to provide a critical overview of the regime - from its emergence from a bloody uprising against a democratic government; through the 'high period' of francoism with its poverty, hunger and fear, followed by a complex period of change and economic growth; to the final demise of the dictatorship, amid open opposition and internal defections. Economics and society are as integral a part of the story in 'Franco's Spain' as politics, and international relations find their place alongside purely domestic issues. The book also peers beyond the grave, examining the transition to democracy after the dictator's death in 1975.