A fascinating study of the contribution of ordinary men and women to Spain's democratic transition of the 1970s. Radcliff argues that participants in neighbourhood and other associations experimented with new practices of civic participation that put pressure on the authoritarian state and made the building blocks of a future democratic citizenship

PAMELA RADCLIFF Associate Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego, USA. She has published various works on modern Spain, including From Mobilization to Civil War: The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijon, 1900-1937, and Contesting Spanish Womanhood, a collection of scholarly essays co-edited with Victoria Enders.