Abstract
Guy Thomson, The Birth of Modern Politics in Spain: Democracy, Association and Revolution, 1854–75, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; xii + 361 pp.; £65.00 hbk; ISBN 9780230222021
With universities regulated by autonomous governments and works often published by local editorial houses, Spanish scholarship is marked by an excessive focus on local studies. Therefore, a book written in English concentrating on an apparently backwater area of the country – Loja and other small towns of Granada in Eastern Andalucía – appears in principle of little value. In fact, Thomson has succeeded in producing a compelling and original study.
Spain’s transition from absolutism to liberalism was characterized by constant strife. The nineteenth century opened with the Napoleonic Wars (1808–14). The return of King Fernando VII ushered in an era of massive repression which concluded with the so-called ‘ominous decade’ (1823–33). After his death, a civil war broke out between the supporters of absolutism, the so-called Carlists who rallied around the dead monarch’s brother Don Carlos, and the Liberals, loyal to his niece Isabel. The triumph of liberalism ensured the dismantlement of the old feudal apparatus but ultimately failed to produce social and political stability. The expropriation of ecclesiastical property and municipal land produced a new enlarged ruling order consisting of the very same old feudal class together with urban speculators and wealthy peasants who could afford the high price of this land sold at public auctions. The recurrence of food crises throughout the nineteenth century and the subsequent popular riots were ample proof of the failure of the liberal revolution to produce significant economic modernization and improve mass living conditions. In a system in which only a narrow minority were entitled to vote, small political factions with little popular following, once in power, sought only to exclude the others. Widespread popular discontent led to conspiracies, banditry and revolutions. In turn, the generals became the final arbiter of politics as for nearly three decades, pronunciamientos or military coups were the only significant means of political change.
Thomson’s book begins with the revolution of 1854, the Spanish variant of 1848 Europe, and ends with the military coup that restored the Bourbons to the throne in December 1874. Such a turbulent and complex period is examined through the analysis of two relevant personalities of the epoch whose power-base was the small town of Loja: General Ramón Narváez and Rafael Pérez de Alamo. The former, seven times prime minister between 1844 and 1868, was the espadón (big sword) of the moderado party, the most conservative faction of the liberal governing class. The latter, a veterinarian blacksmith, was one of the key leaders of the Democrat party, the Spanish Jacobins and revolutionaries. They are examined as an illuminating example of the two antagonistic Spains they represented: Catholic, intolerant and retrospective vis-a-vis free thinking and Republican-inclined.
Divided into four chronological sections, this work contributes greatly to understanding a period which, due to constant political turbulence and praetorian intervention, has been ignored or only superficially studied by most scholars. However, this era cannot be overlooked. The seeds of modern Spanish politics were planted then, including the tensions and violence which would mark the country’s progress well into the twentieth century. Overall, the conservative politics epitomized by Narváez could have been examined in more depth, and some comparative analysis should have been drawn with similar political realignments taking place at the time in countries such as France or Germany. The long-lasting influence of Narváez in the militarization of public order and the entrenchment of caciquismo (boss rule), combined with some paternalist practices which were to dominate Restoration politics after 1874, could also have been explored much further. In contrast, Thompson excels in his study of the revolutionaries, or to be more accurate, of their ultimate failure. The influence of the Italian Party of Action, led by Giuseppe Mazzini, and its insurrectionary tactics as well as the Democrats’ inability to impose their hegemony are superbly illustrated in the book’s last section.
In September 1868, a new pronunciamiento developed into a revolution when popular insurrections erupted in all the major cities. The so-called ‘Glorious Revolution' represented Spain’s first serious attempt to establish a genuine democratic regime. However, once the objective of overthrowing Isabel was accomplished, the revolutionary coalition began to fall apart. Divisions and short-comings facilitated the final triumph of conservative reaction. A Federal Republic was proclaimed in 1873 based on the Democrats’ progressive programme of rebuilding the state from the bottom-up through universal suffrage, municipal sovereignty and genuine representative bodies. Yet, the Republic imploded amidst municipal declarations of independence from Madrid, the resumption of the Carlist civil war and a colonial revolt in Cuba.
In conclusion, undergraduates and scholars alike should welcome this perceptive and well-informed study of a largely neglected period of Spanish history. Furthermore, this is an important contribution to the debate that has taken place in Spanish historiography over the relative failure of Spain’s liberal nation-state in the chaotic aftermath of the destruction of the Ancien Régime.
University of Bristol