British Spanish Society-Instituto Cervantes - Annual Lecture

Between Franco's death on 20 November 1975 and the national referendum on 6 December 1975, which overwhelmingly endorsed a constitutional monarchy, Spain underwent an unprecedented orderly transition from a long-lasting dictatorship to a Western-style parliamentary democracy. Tom Burns Marañón followed the process closely as a journalist with privileged access to its key players, and as a scholar of contemporary Spanish history, he can offer insight into how and why it was a model of successful regime change. In his lecture, ‘When Spain surprised the world,’ he analyses who did what half a century ago. 

Tom Burns Marañón studied Modern History at Oxford, where he was a student of Raymond Carr and covered General Franco's death, King Juan Carlos's succession and Spain's transition to democracy for Reuters. He subsequently wrote for The Washington Post and The Financial Times, and has published several books in Spain, including "Conversations about the King" and "The Necessary Monarchy". Tom has been writing two weekly columns for Expansión, Spain's leading business newspaper, for several years, and his latest book, "The Legacy of Juan Carlos I", will be published in November. 

This talk is part of the series Spain: 50 Years from Dictatorship to Democracy.