Claudio Hernández Burgos

Interrogating Francoism: History and Dictatorship in Twentieth-Century Spain: Graham, Helen, ed., New York: Bloomsbury Academic 288 pp.,

Unsurprisingly, General Franco has become the historical figure who most fascinates those interested in Spains twentieth century. Francos regime occupied Spaniards’ lives for almost forty years a...

29.95, ISBN 978-1472576330 Publication Date: August 2016

Abstract This article traces the ways in which the early Franco regime, understood to encapsulate the years 1936–1951, dealt with what was understood to be one of the hangovers of the previous republican regime: “vice” and “immorality” in society. The study departs from a local and micro historical viewed that analyses the discourse on vice and the attendant program of purification by focusing on two districts of the city of Granada, a locality that fell swiftly to the Nationalist forces in July 1936. It understands the regimes concerns about vice as part of the formula embarked upon for the re-nationalization of Spain and its re-Christianization. By taking a view from the locality, this study contributes to the local/national axis of interpretation and debates in respect of the treatment of issues such as prostitution, immorality, and anti-clericalism, and makes a contribution to analysis of the workings of the regime at the level of everyday life. It also assesses the different strategies employed to limit vice and to purify decadent or oppositional quarters of the city, reflecting on both local and national competition and conflicts between two sets of ideas, National Catholicism and the politics of the Falange, vying for hegemony in the New State. As such, a contribution is made to further critiquing monolithic and top-down understandings of the operations of the Franco regime.