Exhuming Franco: Spain’s Second Transition. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2021. (Order a copy at Bookshop.org | Amazon.com | Vanderbilt UP | Kindle | Epub)
Second edition: Vanderbilt UP, Nov. 2023. (Bookshop.org | Vanderbilt UP | Amazon)
Translated and expanded as Franco desenterrado. La segunda Transición española. Barcelona: Pasado & Presente, 2022.
What is left of Francisco Franco’s legacy in Spain today? Franco ruled Spain as a military dictator from 1939 until his death in 1975. In October 2019, his remains were removed from the massive national monument in which they had been buried for forty-four years. For some, the exhumation confirmed that Spain has long been a modern, consolidated democracy. The reality is more complicated. In fact, the country is still deeply affected by the dictatorial legacies of Francoism.
In one short volume, Exhuming Franco covers all major facets of the Francoist legacy today, combining research and analysis with reportage and interviews. This book is critical of Spanish democracy; yet, as the final chapter makes clear, Spain is one of many countries facing difficult questions about a conflictive past. To make things worse, the rise of a new, right-wing nationalist revisionism across the West threatens to undo much of the progress made in the past couple of decades when it comes to issues of historical justice.
Reviews:
Michael Richards, Journal of Modern History 96.2 (2024): 494-96.
Carsten Humlebaek, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 24.3 (2023): 459-61.
Mari Paz Balibrea, The Historian 83.4 (2022): 503-05.
Omar Encarnación, Human Rights Quarterly 45.1 (2023): 161-66.
Natalia Castro Picón, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 56.1 (2022): 177-79.
Javier Muñoz Soro, Spagna contemporanea 31.62 (2022): 163-65.
Joshua Goode, The Volunteer 40.1 (March 2022): 20-21.
Óscar R. Buznego, El Periódico de España, 21 March 2022.
Jordi Amat, Babelia. El País, 25 March 2022.
Francisco Martínez Hoyos, La Voz del Sur, 9 Feb. 2023.
Julio Martín Alarcón, El Confidencial, 13 Feb. 2022.
Charlie Nurse, IHR World, 15 June 2021.
G.W. McDonogh, CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 59.6 (2022).
Chris Bambery, Brave New Europe, 23 Sept. 2021.
Mario Martín Gijón, El Periódico de Extremadura, 20 Nov. 2021.
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