The foundations of civil war : revolution, social conflict and reaction in liberal Spain, 1916-1923 / Francisco J. Romero Salvadó.

"First published in 2008"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [381]-397) and index.

1. La Espana Invertebrada, 1874-1914 -- 2. The Gathering Storm -- 3. A Fatal Neutrality -- 4. The Artlessness of Insurrection: The Spanish Revolution of 1917 (A Drama in Three Acts) -- 5. The Catalanist Offensive -- 6. The Hour of the CNT -- 7. The Red Tide -- 8. Reaction on the March -- 9. Si vis Pacem Para Bellum -- 10. The Moroccan Nightmare -- 11. The Death of the Liberal Patient.

This book analyzes the decay of Liberal politics in Spain as the regional version of the general crisis that engulfed most of Europe between 1916 and 1923. Romero enriches the important wider debate about this watershed period of European history when, in the face of unprecedented mass social protest and political mobilization, incumbent governing elites struggled to find a valid formula of social containment in the dawning of mass politics which also saw the spread of the radical new doctrines of Bolshevism and Fascism. Above all, this book examines Spain{u2019}s "crisis of modernization," a process marked by complex social and political realignments through which the nature of civil society was profoundly altered. It resulted in an unprecedented spiral of violence and a polarization that firstly led to an authoritarian formula of social control in 1923, and ultimately to the outbreak of civil war in 1936.