Bloomsbury Antiauthoritarian Youth Culture in Francoist Spain: Clashing with Fascism

This book explores the role of young people in shaping a democratic Spain, focusing on their urban performances of dissent, their consumption of censored literature, political-literary magazines and comic books and their involvement in a newly developed punk scene. After forty years of dictatorship, Madrid became the centre of both a young democracy and a vibrant artistic scene by the early 1980s. Louie Dean Valencia-García skillfully examines howyoung Spaniards occupied public plazas, subverted Spanish cultural norms and undermined the authoritarian state by participating in a postmodern punk subculture that eventually grew into the 'Movida Madrileña'.In doing so, he exposeshow this antiauthoritarian youth culture reflected a mixture of sexual liberation, a rejection of the ideological indoctrination of the dictatorship, a reinvention of native Iberian pluralistic traditions and a burgeoning global youth culture that connected the USA, Britain, France and Spain. By analyzing young people's everyday acts of resistance, Antiauthoritarian Youth Culture in Francoist Spain offers a fascinating account of Madrid's youth and their role in the transition to the modern Spanish democracy. Review An extremely lively and stimulating contribution to the much-neglected social and cultural history of twentieth-century Spain. It offers a reconstruction of antiauthoritarian youth culture that delineates not only the intersections between dictatorship and democracy, but also the hitherto unexplored interstices of the transgressive, underground and counter cultures of the two regimes.Nigel Townson, Senior Lecturer in Spanish History, The Complutense University of Madrid, SpainThis is a highly original study that investigates for the first time youth culture and the practice of everyday life in Spain under the late dictatorship and transition to democracy. In a series of brilliant chapters, the author examines a wide range of little known and less studied sources, often culled from archives: school textbooks, comics, nightclubs, and fanzines. From National-Catholic ideologies to Pedro Almodóvar via Superman and punk, this book offers a lucid and compelling account of a fascinating multimedia field.Paul Julian Smith, Distinguished Professor, City University of New York, USAThis is what I've been waiting for - a colorful and creative exploration of youth resistance under the Franco regime. From Superman in Spain to naked pro-democracy protesters, Louie Dean Valencia-García uncovers it all. And given the recent emergence of authoritarianism in the United States and Europe, this book couldn't have come at a more opportune time.Hamilton M. Stapell, Associate Professor of History, State University of New York, New Paltz, USA About the Author Louie Dean Valencia-García is Assistant Professor of History at Texas State University, USA. He has taught at Harvard University, USA, and held fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the United States Library of Congress and the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. He is an editor for EuropeNow, the monthly journal of the Council for European Studies at Columbia University, USA.