This book examines the élites who have striven to dominate, exploit, or change the structures of power in modern Spain. For much of the twentieth century, Spain has seethed with intense conflict between Catholics and anti-clericals, landowners and peasants, workers and industrialists, centralists and regionalists, liberal democrats and authoritarian soldiers. Periods of outright violence - 1917-1923 and 1936-1939 - have been followed by repressive dictatorships. Yet even under Primo de Rivera and Franco, the struggle continued over how, why, and by whom political, social, and economic power should be exercised.

The contributors, friends and pupils of Sir Raymond Carr, have drawn on the latest research to provide intriguing new insights into Spain's turbulent development throughout the twentieth century.