Spain

A MAJOR IMPERIAL power from the 16th century to the Napoleonic era, Spain in the last 150 years has been riven by significant divisions in ideology, class, and ethnicity. The 19th century was a period of loss, in which the Spanish were driven out of their Latin American possessions, a process that largely ended in 1898, with the loss of Cuba and the Philippines. The first eight decades of the 20th century were a period of internal division and struggle, with the political left having its greatest influence during the Second Republic (1931–36), and in the 1980s, after the restoration of democracy provided for by the death of fascist Francisco Franco in 1975. Under the leadership of Felipe Gonzalez in the 1980s, Spain moved a ...