History and memory: a new social dimension

The history of the Civil War and the Franco Dictatorship is no longer the exclusive preserve of historians, and there are now hundreds of people who wish to address this past in political terms and, in the case of the heirs of the victims of Francoism, ethical terms. This is a new social dimension for history, with testimony playing the main role. But the most significant events of the Civil War and the Dictatorship had already been investigated previously as the result of painstaking work by dozens of historians over the last forty years. This article begins with a brief overview on the historiography of the Spanish Civil War and the Dictatorship, examines the political violence that they generated and concludes with some remarks on the relationship between history and memory, the new social dimension of the past that permeates both the debate and political controversy nowadays in Spain.