The Transformation of Rural Spain under Francoism

Since at least the 19th century, Badajoz Province was the classic example of Spain’s most grievous ills: a harsh landscape where poverty, unemployment and landlessness were endemic. Dave Henderson traces the failed efforts of successive governments to tackle these problems and then explains how the Franco regime sought to take a different approach centered on irrigation, social regulation and land grants to politically reliable farmers. Did the Francoist plan transform the landscape and society of Spain’s poorest region? Henderson argues that it did, but in a manner far different from what government planners had envisioned.