ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the main aspects of politics, society, and culture before the outbreak of the war (1880–1914) in both countries. In this framework, it focuses on the crisis of 1898, the generation of 1914 and the debates on Spain as a nation and its paper in the international European context, the first centenary of the Argentine independence in 1910, its social and political development, and the tension between the national identity and the massive European immigration. All these elements provide the reader a basic background to be introduced properly to the core of the book.
