The story of Fidel Castro has few parallels in contemporary history. None of the outstanding Third World leaders of the twentieth-century played such a prominent and restless part on the international stage and none survived as head of state for as long. Over almost 50 years, he was one of the most controversial political figures in the world, and his legacy has yet to be fully evaluated. Some of his most cherished plans were realized and are a model for many Third World countries. Yet despite enormous sacrifices by Cubans, his grand vision remains unfulfilled and its continued pursuit is full of risks. The fully revised third edition of this respected political biography provides the first full retrospect of Castro's remarkable career right up to his illness and withdrawal from power in February 2008, incorporating analysis of: the renewed crackdown on dissidents in Cuba from the mid 1990s on the major geopolitical reconfiguration of Latin America in the late 1990s, and the new Cuban-Venezuelan relationship under Hugo Chavez the Helms Burton Act and the continuing US embargo The Cuban economy in the first decade of the new millennium It also revisits earlier events in Castro's career, for instance the various assassination plots against him , the Cuban missile crisis and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the light of documents released by Cuba and the US over the past decade and a half.

While Spain is now a well-established democracy closely integrated into the European Union, it has suffered from a number of severe internal problems such as corruption, discord between state and regional nationalism, and separatist terrorism.
"The Politics" "of Contemporary Spain" charts the trajectory of Spanish politics from the transition to democracy through to the present day, including the aftermath of the Madrid bombings of March 2004 and the elections that followed three days later. It offers new insights on the main political parties and the political system, on the monarchy, corruption, terrorism, regional and conservative nationalism, and on Spain's policies in the Mediterranean and the EU. It challenges many existing assumptions about politics in Spain, reaching beyond systems and practices to look at identities, political cultures and mentalities. It brings to bear on the analysis the latest empirical data and theoretical perspectives.
Providing adetailed political analysis in an historical context, this book will be of vital importance to students and researchers of Spanish studies and politics.

Series Information:
Routledge/Canada Blanch Studies in Contemporary Spain

The story of Fidel Castro has few parallels in contemporary history. None of the outstanding Third World leaders of the twentieth-century played such a prominent and restless part on the international stage and none survived as head of state for as long. Over almost 50 years, he was one of the most controversial political figures in the world, and his legacy has yet to be fully evaluated. Some of his most cherished plans were realized and are a model for many Third World countries. Yet despite enormous sacrifices by Cubans, his grand vision remains unfulfilled and its continued pursuit is full of risks.

The fully revised third edition of this respected political biography provides the first full retrospect of Castro's remarkable career right up to his illness and withdrawal from power in February 2008, incorporating analysis of:

- the renewed crackdown on dissidents in Cuba from the mid 1990s on

- the major geopolitical reconfiguration of Latin America in the late 1990s, and the new Cuban-Venezuelan relationship under Hugo Chavez

- the Helms Burton Act and the continuing US embargo

- The Cuban economy in the first decade of the new millennium

It also revisits earlier events in Castro's career, for instance the various assassination plots against him, the Cuban missile crisis and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the light of documents released by Cuba and the US over the past decade and a half.

This is the first full account in any language of Spain's disastrous war with the United States in 1898, in which she lost the remnants of her old empire. It is also the first comprehensive analysis of the ensuing political and social crisis in Spain from the loss of empire through the First World War to the military coup of 1923. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the roots of the Spanish crisis in the first half of the twentieth century.

This is a study of the Spanish Labour Movement in Barcelona from 1939 to 1988, with particular emphasis on the period between 1962 and 1976. It explains how the movement, so long the scourge of the Franco regime, became the poor relation of the new democracy it had helped to create. From this emerges a wide-ranging investigation of working-class life and culture, labour relations, and politics in an authoritarian regime. Balfour subtly interweaves all aspects of working-class experience, from architecture to accident benefits. The book thus successfully unravels one of the chief paradoxes of the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain, and also casts light on the broader issues of labour history in general, and the nature of modern authoritarian regimes. Dr Balfour uses the archives of Franco's secret police, untouched since the dictator's death, and provides a unique insight into the inner workings of the dictatorship.