ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the development of nationalist movements in Spain and Portugal in order to set the contributions which follow within a broader context. It intends to cover some areas in rather greater depth: in particular the rise of peripheral nationalisms in Spain from the late nineteenth century, and the causes behind the very different nationalist identities and conflicts which developed in Spain and Portugal. Both Spain and Portugal underwent a process of early state-formation, their territories carved from the advance of the Christian armies southwards at the expense of the Peninsula’s Moorish inhabitants. The partial failure to forge a nation-state in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is thoroughly analysed by Jose Alvarez Junco, Sebastian Balfour and Francisco Romero Salvado. The diverse historical memories and traditions provided fertile soil for a ‘regional’ cultural production which sat uneasily with myths of Spanish nationhood.
