A sibling of interwar Europe's other fascist regimes, Franco's Spain
survived them all, growing to old age in an era of liberal democracy. It
weathered the explosive social movements and student discontents of the
1960s and lingered into the 1970s, its earlier fascist ideology
attenuated almost out of recognition, with simple survival its greatest
preoccupation.

Franco's Spain looks beyond the
mythology surrounding the origins of the dictatorship to provide a
critical overview of the regime - from its emergence from a bloody
uprising against a democratic government; through the 'high period' of
francoism with its poverty, hunger and fear, followed by a complex
period of change and economic growth; to the final demise of the
dictatorship, amid open opposition and internal defections. Economics
and society are as integral a part of the story in 'Franco's Spain' as
politics, and international relations find their place alongside purely
domestic issues. The book also peers beyond the grave, examining the
transition to democracy after the dictator's death in 1975.