The French and Spanish Popular Fronts: Comparative Perspectives

The menace of triumphant Nazism and fascism across Europe in the 1930s drove the left into unity with liberals, in order to make common cause against the extremist right. Popular Front initiatives were a significant attempt to bar the way to further fascist victories. This collection of essays focuses specifically on France and Spain as the only two countries where Popular Front coalitions won political power through the ballot box. From a comparative perspective the volume gathers leading experts on the 1930s who travel beyond the territory of orthodox political history. Taken together, their contributions provide the first multi-dimensional approach to the Front phenomenon. The Popular Fronts in France and Spain emerge here as more than elite political partnerships - they were movements of the masses in search of social, cultural and educational change.