Description
Book SynopsisSpain is a notable exception to the implicit rules of late twentieth-century democratization: after the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975, the recovering nation began to consolidate democracy without enacting any of the mechanisms promoted by the international transitional justice movement. There were no political trials, no truth and reconciliation commissions, no formal attributions of blame, and no apologies. Instead, Spain''s national parties negotiated the Pact of Forgetting, an agreement intended to place the bloody Spanish Civil War and the authoritarian excesses of the Franco dictatorship firmly in the past, not to be revisited even in conversation. Formalized by an amnesty law in 1977, this agreement defies the conventional wisdom that considers retribution and reconciliation vital to rebuilding a stable nation. Although not without its dark side, such as the silence imposed upon the victims of the Civil War and the dictatorship, the Pact of Forgetting allowed for t
Trade Review
"Omar Encarnación has written a learned, thoughtful, and indeed humane critique of those who believe that there are universal solutions to the problem of nations coping with a recent history of conflict and oppression. His book should find readers well beyond Iberian specialists. He raises some of the most important questions of our time, and they concern us all." * Ian Buruma, author of Year Zero: A History of 1945 *
"A first-rate piece of scholarship that undertakes a detailed empirical analysis of a controversial and important issue, leading to a well-founded conclusion that challenges the conventional wisdom." * Richard Gunther, Ohio State University *
