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The article discusses the relations between the Netherlands and Spain during the Dutch War of Independence and throughout the seventeenth century, focusing on Dutch efforts to garner hard currency in the form of Spanish silver from their colonies. It discusses the Netherlands burgeoning international trade during the period, smuggling, the West India Company and its attacks on Spanish Atlantic trade vessels, and the Dutch East India Company.

Due to the interaction between foreign instructors and local recruits in Security Force Assistance (SFA), deployed military personnel often experience challenges arising from cultural frictions. This article analyses the relevance of cross-cultural awareness for military performance in SFA. The research is based on data obtained from 22 face-to-face interviews with Spanish military personnel about their experience in Iraq (2015-2022). The results reported cultural differences as being the main difficulty in deployment. Spanish military personnel employed different strategies to cope with these difficulties, relying mainly on interaction through mediated or direct communication with local personnel. Despite this, the sociability of the troops has been identified as a distinctive element of the Spanish military, which facilitates the building of relationships. The culture of origin of the military operates as a cross-cutting category that substantially facilitates intercultural awareness in international operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most social research collects data about abstract concepts (e.g., attitudes) using survey questions. However, survey data suffer from measurement errors that affect substantive conclusions. When measurement errors differ across countries, cross-national comparisons of standardized relationships can result in incorrect substantive conclusions. However, no research has analysed the measurement quality of survey questions in Spain in a comparative perspective. Using a Split-Ballot Multitrait-Multimethod experiment conducted in the European Social Survey round 8, we compare the quality of questions in Spain with their quality in other participating countries. The average measurement quality in Spain is higher than the overall average for all ESS countries. In addition, when comparing Spain with other countries, substantive conclusions can be incorrect if differences in the size of measurement errors are not taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1559 and 1589, Catherine de Médicis developed an acute understanding of the role of the arts in expressing power and political influence. This article argues that the celebrations organized for the meeting of the French and Spanish courts at Bayonne in 1565 demonstrate Catherine's keen understanding of the power of visual culture, and skill at manipulating images in the service of diplomacy. As de facto ruler of France, she reinterpreted popular forms of entertainments and developed new imagery that promoted herself and her son, King Charles IX, as well as asserted her own political legitimacy and that of the ruling Valois dynasty. The fetes at Bayonne were essential in defining Catherine's role as one of Europe's most influential art patrons. The new forms of entertainments devised on the occasion, and their sophisticated visual propaganda, would become characteristic of both a true French Renaissance and a nascent baroque culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a half-century, the historiography on Spanish Habsburg rule suggested that the crown envisioned Indies society as best divided into two segregated sociolegal groups: the republic of the Spaniards and the republic of the Indians. This model was popularized by the eminent mid twentieth century Swedish historian Magnus Mörner and has since become a foundational concept in the field. However, using extensive archival evidence, this article suggests that the Mörner Thesis of the Two Republics is flawed. Historicizing sixteenth-century uses of the concept of the republic, it finds that contemporaries conceived of a complex social order in which many political communities such as municipalities and groups of petitioners could overlap within larger meta-republics, such as the Indies republic and the Christian faith-republic. It then turns to subjects' uses of the two republics, noting that this conceptual duality appeared rarely in the petitions of Spanish officials, commoners, Indians, Afro-descendants, and mestizos, and was also rare in royal and viceregal legislation. Moreover, this binary most often served to suggest Spaniards' and Indians' common ground. The article then reflects on other approaches to understanding the Indies' Spanish-Indian binary, the place of non-Spanish, non-Indian vassals within republic-thinking, and the staggering complexity of Indies laws, categories, and social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish colonial incursions into highland Guatemala encountered a vibrant assemblage of entangled people, places, plants, and things. Colonists sought to marshall this assemblage into various accumulation projects through strategies of colonial control that re-ordered the landscape and its settlements, enabling new forms of surveillance, tracking, subject making, and exploitation of Native communities and laborers. This "grid" of control proved effective in many regards, particularly due to the preservation of the extant assemblage of infrastructure, social relations, and relations of production encountered. Rather than fully disrupt it, colonists accommodated this assemblage and sought to salvage value from its persistence. However, an ambivalence emerged from this dependence on the refracted assemblage of highland Guatemala; an assemblage that remained outside of colonists full control and made the colonial grid a thoroughly leaky one as people and things became or remained entangled in ways that subverted the goals of colonial control and afforded the persistence of Native communities and relations through, between and beyond the violence of colonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that Treaty of San Ildefonso signed between Spain and Portugal on opens the door for Spain to attempt in its history, the colonial occupation of the Gulf of Guinea through an annex reserved for African territories. Topics include Spain managed to establish a colonial law in the middle of the African equatorial zone; and military resources destined for the expedition to Africa were withdrawn from the territories of Santa Catalina and Colonia Sacramento,.

During the first half of the twentieth century, Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Ricardo Rojas corresponded regularly about the rebuilding of political and cultural ties between Spain and Argentina following the latter's independence. In these letters, the Spanish philologist and Rojas discussed personal news, the progress of World War I, the possibility of helping republican exiles, as well as academic topics, such as their thoughts on language, literature and folklore, the creation of the Institute of Philology at the University of Buenos Aires or the challenges to founding the Argentine Academy of Letters. Studying these texts provides insight into the history of interventions into Argentine culture during its first hundred year, a time when ties with Spain were actively being reestablished, though not without conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the relations between Francoist Spain and Nazi Germany during World War II, the role of fascist women in international politics, and the health services of Spain's Blue Division.

Spanish fascist women played a very active role in the Falange's cross-border relations with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. From the very beginning, fascist women took a preeminent place in these contacts and exchanges in order to see with their own eyes how both fascist models were at a practical level. These relationships between fascist women's organizations were born out of deep ideological affinity and were especially fluid, firstly on a bilateral level and after 1940 on the 'New Order' Europe-wide multilateral, transnational collaboration. However, they lacked neither of political calculation nor could abstract from the wider frame of international politics in such an eminently war period. As this article will show, Falangist women used these fluid but less studied relationships to consolidate their own political position at home and explore other ways of political participation in a Nazi-Fascist New Europe, while at the same time trying to secure there a pre-eminent place for non-belligerent Spain. In the end, concerns about the own survival of the Franco dictatorship as the fate of war clearly changed in 1943, let ideological affinity succumb to the diplomatic conveniences they had once meant to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the objectives pursued by Nazi propaganda in Spain went far beyond merely securing Spanish participation in the Second World War. Through the examination of under-utilized materials from Spanish and German archives, including the previously inaccessible archive of José Luis de Arrese, general secretary of the Falange, this article shows that propaganda campaigns varied in means, content and dissemination, depending on the evolution of the conflict. The aims of these campaigns reflect in turn Nazi interests in Spain, from protecting economic assets in the Peninsula, to ensuring the supply of raw materials to the war effort, and turning Spain into a bridgehead for German interests in North Africa and Latin America. The article shows how a combination of ideology and opportunism, conveniently balanced by the ambassadors' realpolitik, allowed for fruitful collaboration with the Falange. This was central to the development of the propaganda campaigns. I contend that by looking more closely at the ramifications of Spanish neutrality, we can further analyse how Spain fitted into the Nazis' overarching foreign policy and evaluate whether this was the product of opportunism or historical continuities with pre-war policies, including German propaganda aims in Spain during the First World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the case of the Spanish Blue Division to examine the history of transnational exchange and cooperation within the Nazi New Order. In particular, it explores the experiences of the Blue Division's medical services, which were required to engage most closely with the international environment of the Eastern Front. The Blue Division and its medical services shed new light on this topic in a number of different ways. Firstly, they show how the New Order was experienced by those from outside the core Axis states of Germany and Italy, and beyond the minority of ideologically-committed fascist fellow travellers. Secondly, volunteers within the medical corps help to illustrate how the New Order was perceived as a forum for scientific, intellectual and professional exchange, building on the traditional prestige of German science and pre-war practices of international scientific cooperation. Finally, integrating the perspectives of junior officers and rank-and-file troops helps to move beyond the political and cultural elites who dominate the literature on the New Order to show how cooperation and exchange worked on the ground. In particular, it demonstrates where the limits to this cooperation lay, and how individuals dealt with the tensions and conflicts between different national groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the early 1930s, admiration for Hitler and Nazi Germany became characteristic of Spanish fascists. They were fascinated by the image of National Socialism and its example of 'national resurgence'. During the war, the influence of Nazi Germany among Spanish fascists, traditionalists and supporters of the emerging Franco regime increased. On their return, Spanish travellers to Nazi Germany portrayed an enthusiastic image of a new society, marked by strong national pride, economic resurgence, social solidarity and material welfare. Until the end of the Second World War, several thousand Spanish Fascists and supporters of the Franco Regime visited Nazi Germany as soldiers on their way to and from the Eastern front, as civil workers or as students. A study of the experiences of such individuals may broaden our perspective on how Nazi Germany influenced foreign visitors. What image of Nazi Germany did those visitors paint in their letters, diaries and memoirs? What was left from this experience in post-1945 Spanish memories? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and WatchTheMed Alarm Phone activist hotline through which migrants in distress at sea can call. Topics discussed include decline in migrant movements along the central Mediterranean route, the intensity of Moroccan-Spanish border transgressions and a bilateral repatriation agreements between Spain and West African countries.

Colombia is currently embedded in the international dynamics of migration, not only as a country with migrant outflows but also as a destination and transit country. The most featured case is that of Venezuelans, particularly in the recent years. However, there are nationals from other countries coming into ours, just like Spaniards, who are highly qualified for work. This situation has not only established our country as a migrant destination but also has unveiled the need of a migration policy both efficacious and capable to cope with the challenges and opportunities resulting from the new migration reality. Thiis text tells the change in the Colombian migration panorama between Spain and Colombia during 2008-2013. It also presents the background, current situation and some challenges faced by our country in economic and legal spheres due to the migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1946, Iberia, the Spanish flag carrier, was one of the most useful instruments of Spanish foreign policy, focusing, after the Second World War, on connections between Europe and Latin America. Taking advantage of many bilateral agreements between Spain and Latin American countries, Iberia increased its traffic in the region and in the 1950s consolidated an extensive Latin American network. After 1965, its top managers deployed a new policy in Latin America, scaling up its technical cooperation and financial support. In order to cope with the global liberalisation and privatisation of flag carriers, in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s Iberia attempted to further escalate its penetration, acquiring many Latin American airlines, and to impede the access of European competitors in this region, but this strategy failed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city of Antwerp occupies a special place in the history of relations between Spain and the Netherlands during the centuries of the modern period. Hispano-Netherlandish relations in the centuries of the modern period have been studied from many different points of view. On this occasion we propose to delve into the origins of the very important links created around books and to deal, in particular, with the beginnings of the production of books in Spanish in Antwerp. Our intention here, therefore, is not to make a new listing of the editions printed at that time but a quite different one: to analyse the way in which this interesting publishing phenomenon developed in its origins and within a very specific period of time: the years prior to Christophe Plantin's great publishing success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the conflicting opinions of Spanish ministers and King Philip III in the 1610s regarding the Bohemian and Hungarian successions. Philip III's refusal to support Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, a Hapsburg; Reevaluation of Philip III's duties to his dynasty; Responsible for kindling Spanish interest in the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns; Philip III's personal views; The controversy leadindg to Spain's involvement in the Thirty Years' War.

The first years of the Spanish presence in the Philippines gave birth to a rich array of literature, most of it of an epistolary nature, which was meant to communicate to the authorities in New Spain and Madrid what was happening in this furthest outpost of the empire. In this collection of reports, letters and accounts the numerous critical texts (most notably by Martin de Rada) stand out, following the footsteps of Las Casas, and denouncing the crimes of the Spanish soldiers against the indigenous Filipinos. This article will analyze the most significant discursive strategies in these letters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1820, the reinstatement of the Constitution of 1812 placed Spain at the head of the international political agenda, since it presented the first challenge to the status quo defined at the Congress of Vienna. During the following years, the great powers increased the pressure exerted on Spain’s Liberal regime, shifting from diplomatic pressure to the eventual French military intervention in 1823, which ruined hopes of a liberal political efflorescence in Europe. The object of this article is to systematise knowledge about Spain’s foreign policy during the so-called Liberal Triennium (1820–23), and to analyse its progress from an initial idealism, associated with prevailing Romanticism, to ultimate isolationism. This was a result of a lack of resources and also of inconsistency in Spain’s foreign policy, at a time when a well-defined international plan might have changed the fate of Spanish Liberalism. The article also pays special attention to the diplomatic relations between Spain and Great Britain, the only great power that did not pursue the marked hostility towards Spanish Liberalism displayed by the continental powers after 1820. Accordingly, most of the hopes of an increasingly besieged Liberal Spain were placed on Britain’s good offices and support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the history of women's work in the silk industry in Granada, Spain, the transatlantic ties between Spain and colonial Mexico, and Karina and Lou Smith's genealogy.

Contacts between China and Spain have a long tradition dating back to the first missions in the sixteenth century. However, there is a significant vacuum in the historiography on the interrelations between the two countries in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Recent research projects are recovering a wealth of materials that testify an important presence of China in the Spanish culture of the period. In this context, this article analyses the presence of the visual imaginary of China in fin-de-siècle Spain. By looking at images and photographs of China in popular culture and the illustrated press, the article underscores the existence of a strong mediation of foreign sources simultaneous with direct approaches by Spanish diplomats, missionaries, and travellers, the productivity of a lack of direct knowledge and the continuity of an exotic imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article shows how scientific travels contribute decisively to the construction of expert authority. An example of this can be observed in studying the work of the chemist José Casares Gil (1866-1961), who, together with other Spanish scientists, made several trips to European and Latin American countries. Some had formative and academic objectives, but others were related to diplomacy and cultural mediation in different spaces. Furthermore, he formed part of institutions that promoted scientific exchanges to modernize pedagogical practices in the teaching of chemistry in Spain and in America. But he was also a chemist who developed links and networks of contacts among a variety of different countries, which benefited both the institutions involved and the experts themselves who thereby strengthened their own scientific authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late nineteenth century European intellectual circles participated in a debate on the possible confrontation between two so-called civilisations, represented respectively by Latin and Anglo-Saxon nations. The controversy moved to Latin America, where discussions showed certain peculiarities. Given the position occupied by Spanish intellectuals as links between Europe and the Western Hemisphere, this article seeks to emphasise how some prestigious Spanish publications dealt with the debate on race from 1898 to 1914. While the collaboration of foreign personalities and the publication of book reviews fostered the knowledge of this issue in Spain, one of the most important initiatives were the sections entitled ‘Review of Reviews’, which began to collect articles from other countries. The author takes as his object of study an important intellectual debate that transcended national borders and generated numerous reactions in both Europe and Latin America. This research demonstrates how the analysis of the Spanish press sheds light on the establishment of a circuit of opinions among foreign intellectuals. It not only allows to include Spain within a shared awareness network comprising European and Latin American nations, but also examines its special features within the transatlantic scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A bitter conflict between the Spanish and Ottoman empires dominated the second half of the sixteenth century. In this early modern "global" conflict, intelligence played a key role. The Duchy of Milan, home to Simon Sacerdoti (c.1540-1600), a Jew, had fallen to Spain. The fate that usually awaited Jews living on Spanish lands was expulsion--and there were signs to suggest that King Philip II (1527-1598) might travel down that road. Sacerdoti, the scion of one of Milan's wealthiest and best-connected Jewish families had access to secret information through various contacts in Italy and North-Africa. Such intelligence was highly valuable to Spanish forces, and Philip II was personally interested in it. However, this required Sacerdoti to serve an empire--Spain--with a long history of harming the Jews, and to spy on the Ottomans, widely considered as the Jews' supporters at the time. This article offers a reflection on Simon Sacerdoti's story. Examining how a Jew became part of the Spanish intelligence agency helps us understand how early modern secret information networks functioned and sheds new light on questions of Jewish identity in a time of uprootedness and competing loyalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the geographical distance, the Colombian immigrants associations in Spain have had a growing incidence upon the local topics of their country of origin; their actions have acquired a progressive transnational dimension. Amongst other practices, these associations have implemented numerous development projects in Colombia implying the vertical and horizontal mobilization networks in both, the country of origin and the country of destination. In parallel, the Colombian and Spanish states have shown a renewed interest in supporting these actions. In this article we ask ourselves how is that these dynamics, raised by migration, could contributed to the construction of a new transnational social space between both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish self-governing regions' international actions date back as far as the 1980s. Together with the Basque Country, Catalonia is the Spanish self-governing region with the most active trajectory of international action. Catalan international action, which is a pioneer in the Spanish context, came to be slowly but progressively accepted as a normalized form of conduct by the Spanish state, as was the international action of other Spanish self-governing regions. Nevertheless, this normalization did not eliminate conflict, which continued to surface, though sporadically and without representing significant problems. However, things appear to have changed recently. Since 2012, Catalonia has been immersed in the process of independence or national transition. In this context, the Catalan Government's international action has taken new directions and created new instruments. For the first time in the history of Catalonia's international action, we witness clear signs of protodiplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the issue of Turkish image which was based on sometimes rumours and mostly the events that happened in the Golden Age of Spain -and also usually appears as a negative image- will be discussed. As it is known, the Turks, who were perceived as "the other" in the Christian world, have been described as barbarian and relentless enemies in Medieval Europe. The situation of the Turks and the Spaniards, who often confronted with each other throughout history, was reflected in the work of many Spanish writers. In this article, the classical Spanish writers' views about the Turkish world will be discussed and especially objective attitude of Cervantes towards the Turks will be emphasized. Furthermore, parallel cases of the Spanish and Turks will be explained with some examples. Furthermore, parallel cases of the Spanish and Turks will be explained with some examples. It is thought that it is important to translate this article into Turkish as it reflects the viewpoint about Turks in this (i.e. classical) period from a wider perspective by referring to the Works of many classical period Spanish writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish Cooperation has already available a large number of evaluations. Their final purpose is to serve as an instrument of accountability and to contribute to evidence-based decision making. Our aim in this paper was to synthesize and highlight some of the key findings of the evaluations, managed by the Division of Evaluation and Knowledge Management (SGCID) from 2013 to 2016. These findings have been gathered around some topics: design, structure of the cooperation system, policy implementation, management for development results, and evaluation and knowledge management. Currently there is an open debate around the priorities of the 5lh Master Plan that are still to be decided, being a valuable opportunity to make decisions to improve quality and effectiveness of the Spanish Cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Florentine humanists of the 15th century combined public service with their work as historians. Quevedo followed that tradition from his first works like España defendida, and the Discurso de las privanzas. In 1613 he decided to travel to Italy to serve as secretary and right hand man of the Duke of Osuna, viceroy of Naples and Sicily. These were times of an intense activity, described in Grandes anales de quince días, a work written to prove his innocence and to win over the new monarch and his ministers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes the travel account authored by Moroccan ambassador Muhammad al- Ghassanı, who visited Spain in 1690 -91. The account shows the evolution of the early modern frontier between Christian Europe and Islamic North Africa, from a militarized boundary to the development of diplomatic relations. Both an agent and witness of that history, al-Ghassanı describes a heterogeneous space: he surveys the border, explores the foreign land of modern Spain, and reimagines the memory of al-Andalus. His important account, based on sharp observation and serious research, helps nuance the prevailing view that Arab culture had ignored Europe before the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the Spanish writings of English traveller Anthony Sherley which show ways that address Anglo-Spanish relations from the 1580s to the 1620s. These writings include one on the convenience of the Prince of England's marriage with the Infanta of Spain and one on the world's political weight. Also discussed are the global early modern, views of several scholars on Sherley's writings, and Sherley's political connections.

The goal of this article is to study one of the lesser known questions of the Spanish approach to the Axis during the Second World War: German assistance in the defence of the Canary Islands against an Allied attack. To accomplish this objective, a German officer’s visit to these islands to improve their defence after the Anglo-Canadian landing at Dieppe is analysed. The visit proves the maintenance of Spanish-German collaboration at the end of 1942. The report submitted by the officer influenced the reorganization of the defence of the islands in 1943. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role did football play during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) in Spain? This is one of the questions that this article attempts to resolve. Its objective is to present the impact of the first visit to Spain on the part of an Argentine club, the Boca Juniors Athletic Club, as reported in the Spanish press in 1925. At the methodological level, a review was done of the general bibliography and of the main Spanish magazines and newspapers, both in terms of sports and general information. It demonstrates, as its general conclusion, the interest that the Boca Juniors' tour sparked among Spanish and Argentinian fans alike, showing this to be an occasion for asserting both national identity and global relations through football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the case study of the contested British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, this paper contributes to discussions on ‘territorial volumes’ by exploring the role of the ‘elemental’ in the protracted sovereignty dispute between Spain and Gibraltar. Drawing on scholarship by Elden, Adey, McCormack and others in political and cultural geography, the paper highlights the value of foregrounding the elements of rock, water, air and fire (in the form of the sun) in attempts to understand the tensions between Gibraltar and Spain whilst also demonstrating the significant intersections between the elemental and the human body. Whilst avoiding the snares of environmental determinism, the paper makes the case for an elemental ontology that functions through and with the proclivities and molecular specificities of the elements in order to better understand the construct of the territorial volume, the relationship between elemental and bodily volumes, and the site specific geopolitical realities, fractures and possibilities that are laid bare as the elements are unearthed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the political activities of María de Molina (1265-1321), regent of the Castilian throne after the death of her husband, King Sancho IV, in 1295, during the minority of his son Ferdinand IV, from 1295 to 1301, as well as during the minority of her grandson Alfonso XI, 1212 to 1325. In these almost twenty six years conducting the reign policy, Molina de María constitutes the main bastion of resistance and negotiations about the realm matters against the major nobility faction's interests, which took advantage over the weakness of royal power to increase political relevance and dividends. No less important was his activity on foreign policy effecting various agreements with other kingdoms and with the papacy in the purpose to achieve support for sequence of his lineage to the command of the Castilian crown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Soviet intervention in the Spanish Civil War through the personal diaries of the Consul General of the USSR in Barcelona. Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko completed five diaries sent to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR during the month of October 1936. In these diaries, he recounted his personal impressions as well as his activity of his initial stay in the Catalonian capital, which offer an intimate view and detailed picture of the Soviet intervention in Spain. Winning the war was the central objective of Soviet Consulate in Spain, in accordance with the principles of Soviet Collective Security Policy. This central objective, focused on trade relations, military operations and particular relationship with the anarchists and the regional Government of Catalonia and the Government of the Republic, did not show the slightest hint of wanting to sovietize the Spanish Republic. For this reason, the historiographical debate about the logic of Soviet intervention in Spain has a new proof against the thesis of a preconceived plan to impose the soviet political, social and economic model on Spain in 1936. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Castile's African border--and the settlements it formed--has been traditionally considered as a border of exclusion, islands separated from the North African environment, little European islets lost in Africa. Nevertheless, Spanish-Maghrebi interactions in the enclaves were constant, with a zone of inter-ethnic contact emerging between Maghrebis and Spaniards, a scenario of a wide range of interactions of various kinds, made possible by cross-border intermediaries (peaceful Moors and interpreters known as lenguas, trujamanes, and mogataces) that through the intermediation of both sides formed a thick tapestry whose greatest expression was found in the Orán-Mazalquivir enclave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish–Israeli relations expanded across numerous fields throughout the 1960s despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties. For all practical purposes, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a legation in Madrid during the second half of the 1960s, including at least 3 semi-official representatives operating with the full knowledge of Madrid. Clandestinely, a Mossad station worked in liaison with the local intelligence services. Absence of a full-fledged Israeli embassy did not prevent advancing bilateral ties, normalising Jewish affairs in Spain, or preventing both Powers from engaging in official and public occasions or behind the scenes. Systemic pressure, most evident in Madrid’s ascension to GATT, and the need to abide with its rules by liberalising trade with Israel did much to advance Spanish–Israeli bilateral ties in the 1960s. A strong systemic external force also brought change in their relations in the 1980s. The diplomatic breakthrough of January 1986 and establishment of full formal diplomatic relations between the Powers was largely the inevitable result of Spain’s entry into the European Economic Community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]