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In contrast to the traditional interpretation that reduces Spanish-French rivalry to a succession of military confrontations that originated during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, this paper offers a more complex reading of the phenomena of emulation/competition and admiration/seduction between the two monarchies during the first phase of the Italian Wars. Thanks to a re-reading of diplomatic sources and propagandistic production, it shows to what extent the yearnings for religious reform, defence against Ottoman expansion or the recovery of the Christian East conditioned the perceptions and justifications of both powers, which needed the Apostolic See to legitimise their Mediterranean aspirations and their leadership in Christendom. However, there are differences in the means employed and in the degree of synergy with the papacy between the Valois and the last Trastamara monarchies that explain the ascendence of the latter in the early modern period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the evolution of the memory of the conflict known as the Rif War (1921-1926), both in Spain and Morocco, contrasting the visions in both countries and making a special emphasis on its main milestones and protagonists, such as the episode of Annual and the figure of Abdelkrim. In the Spanish case, both the Franco dictatorship and the democratic period up to the present day will be covered, while the Moroccan case will be analyzed from independence in 1956 to 2021, the date on which the centenary of Annual was commemorated. Attention will be paid to the political and social uses of history through the politics of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The studies on the American democracy promotion policy towards Francoist Spain have been many years relegated once taken for granted the propagandistic nature of the American public discourse. However, in order to assess what were Washington’s real aims and determinants in its relations with Franco and his regime, in the first part of this article we briefly examine the changes operated in American geostrategic conceptions from the 30s onwards. In the second part, in what constitutes the core of this paper, a more detailed focus is put on the examination of the Spanish case from the documentation on Spain between the years 1945-1973 preserved in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at College Park, Md. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since J. Brewer's description of Britain as a fiscal-military state, the expression has become a source of inspiration for other country's studies, as well as a methodological tool to examine the relationship between military spending, the Treasure, the Central Administration's organization and the economy of states. This methodology of study has been applied a few times to eighteenth century Spain, assuming in a way or another, that Spain was also a fiscal-military state at that time. Nevertheless, its final defeat against Britain invites us to consider not only what kind of a fiscal-military state could Spain have been, but if it really can be considered like that. As an alternative reflection, this paper argues that Spain could have not been a fiscal-military state, a description that in the end, can give us a better explanation of the Spanish final military and naval defeat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]