Modernizing the Nation

This book is a short history of Spain during a crucial period, the reign of Alfonso XIII (1902-1931). Traditionally, this has been seen as a time that epitomized the worst features of 'old Spain': a backward country, poor and chronically unequal, with a government dominated by a tiny oligarchy ruling over a corrupt system - an anomaly in Western Europe. However, this book, in line with the most recent historiography, offers new insight into the period as one that was actually characterized by extensive modernization in Spanish society and politics. Spain was experiencing - albeit in an unbalanced way - many of the changes already in progress in other European countries, such as urbanization, industrialization, mass migration, the rise in literacy, secularization, and the emergence of mass politics. The country then suffered profound conflicts associated with these changes, as well as with a political dynamic of reform and reaction, revolution and counter-revolution. Modernizing the Nation is divided into four main sections, dealing chronologically with: a) the beginnings of the regenerationist era, b) the climax of the liberal monarchy, c) conflicts during the crisis of liberalism, and d) the military dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Primarily a political history, the book also touches on social, cultural, and economic issues, and it offers a comparative European perspective. Last but not least, there is a special interest in the problems of nation-building (a central theme of the period) and the competition between different versions of Spanish nationalism and regional nationalist movements - above all, Catalanism and Basque nationalism. Overall, the Spanish situation is presented not as a unique case, but as a variation within the difficulties that were encountered all across continental Europe in achieving the transition from classical liberalism to mass democracy. (Series: Sussex Studies in Spanish History)