Reconstructing Spain: Cultural Heritage & Memory After Civil War

This book explores the role of cultural heritage in post-conflict reconstruction, whether as a motor for the prolongation of violence or as a resource for building reconciliation. The research was driven by two main goals: to understand the post-conflict reconstruction process and to identify how this process evolves in the medium term and the impact it has on society. The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and its subsequent phases of reconstruction provides the primary material for this exploration. In pursuit of the first goal, the book centers on the material practices and rhetorical strategies developed around cultural heritage in post-civil war Spain and the victorious Franco regime's reconstruction. The analysis captures a discursively complex set of practices that made up the reconstruction and in which a variety of Spanish heritage sites were claimed, rebuilt or restored, and represented - as signs of historical narratives, political legitimacy, and group identity. The reconstruction of the town of Gernika is a particularly emblematic instance of destruction and a significant symbol within the Basque regions of Spain, as well as internationally. By examining Gernika, it is possible to identify some of the trends common to the reconstruction as a whole, along with those aspects that pertain to its singular symbolic resonance. In order to achieve the second goal, the book examines the processes of selection, value change, and exclusionary dynamics of reconstruction. Exploring the possible impact of post-civil war reconstruction in the medium term is conducted in two time frames: the period of political transition that followed General Franco's death in 1975, and the 2004-2008 period when Rodriguez Zapatero's government undertook initiatives to 'recover the historic memory' of the war and dictatorship. Finally, the observations made of the Spanish reconstruction are analyzed in terms of how they might reveal general trends in post-conflict reconstruction processes in relation to cultural heritage. These insights are pertinent to the situations in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

About the Author :
Dacia Viejo-Rose is a College Research Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge, and a post-doctoral researcher on the European Commission funded research project "Cultural Heritage & the Reconstruction of Identities After Conflict" (CRIC) based at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. In 2006 she founded the Cambridge Post-Conflict and Post-Crisis group and continues to co-organise it.

Review :
"This book is an important and original contribution to a field that is of considerable importance and continuing present-day relevance." --Patrick Boylan, City University of London "Reconstructing Spain examines, through the example of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, the role played by cultural heritage in post-conflict reconstruction, either as the justification of the prolongation of violence or as a contribution to the construction of reconciliation. This is done convincingly through a sophisticated and nuanced examination of various elements of the reconstruction pursued by the Franco dictatorship whether in physical, architectural terms or through 'cultural' devices, the rewriting of history, the demonization of the defeated and so on." --Paul Preston, series editor, London School of Economics "Reconstructing Spain is an excellent book, strongly recommended to those with a general or scholarly interest or anyone wanting to know more about the role of heritage as a propaganda tool, and the risks in reconstructing heritage in postconflict situations. The book offers a fascinating insight into a less reported aspect of the Franco regime. It further enables a better understanding of the current debate about the recovery of lost memories a couple of generations after the end of the Civil War. Perhaps even more importantly, the book contains significant lessons in how the international community should respond to nation building and post-conflict reconciliation." --International Journal of Heritage Studies "Is of significant value to both Hispanists and students of civil wars, memory, and reconstruction. Highly recommended." --Choice