Catalonia: A New History revises many traditional and romantic conceptions in the historiography of a small nation. This book engages with the scholarship of the past decade and separates nationalist myth-history from real historical processes. It is thus able to provide the reader with an analytical account, situating each historical period within its temporal context. Catalonia emerges as a territory where complex social forces interact, where revolts and rebellions are frequent. This is a contested terrain where political ideologies have sought to impose their interpretation of Catalan reality.
This book situates Catalonia within the wider currents of European and Spanish history, from pre-history to the contemporary independence movement, and makes an important contribution to our understanding of nation-making.
Introduction
Chapter One Origins, from Pre-History to the Romans
Chapter Two New Influences. Visigoths, Christianity and the Arabs, 400-800
Chapter Three Consolidation and Expansion 800 to 1150
Chapter Four Aragon and the Mediterranean Empire 1150 to 1410
Chapter Five Decline and Revolt 1415 to 1660
Chapter Six Political incorporation, economic advance 1660 to 1830
Chapter Seven Social conflict, national revival and ideological dispute 1830-1939
Chapter Eight Francoism and the Democratic Experience 1939-2008
Epilogue The failed push for Catalan independence
Bibliography
Biography
Andrew Dowling is Reader in Spanish History at Cardiff University and researches the history and politics of Catalonia. He has previously published The Rise of Catalan Independence: Spain’s Territorial Crisis with Routledge in 2018 and Catalonia since the Spanish Civil War: Reconstructing the Nation (Sussex Academic Press, 2012).
