Spain and Argentina in the First World War: Transnational Neutralities
Book Talk
Dr. Maximiliano Fuentes Codera
Associate Professor at the University of Girona
This is the first book that analyses the transnational impact of the Great War simultaneously on two countries, Spain and Argentina, that remained neutral throughout the conflict. Both countries were very relevant in the conception of propaganda and policies of belligerent countries such as France, Germany, and Great Britain and showed that the conflict had a global influence on and affected deeply local political and cultural processes, even in areas geographically distant from the trenches.
The book is focused on three aspects that are analysed dynamically throughout the whole war from a transnational perspective: neutrality as a space of dispute between pro-Allies and pro-German sectors and its relation with local politics, the debate about what positions should be assumed in order to guarantee a world without war, and the polemics on the ideas of nations and supra-nations (Hispanism, Latinism, Pan-Americanism). The conclusions of the book highlight that the radicalization that exploded in 1917 in both countries was fundamental in shaping the political radicalization of the last months of the conflict and the post-war period. As happened in Europe, the Great War did not finish in 1918 and its traces continued in the 1920s and the 1930s.
