ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the disbelief felt by most Spaniards at their country's diminishing status in the world, as well as debates about the role of the transnational encounter in reversing this decline, attest to the importance of the global in any consideration of Fin-De-Siècle Spain. On all sides of the political spectrum, Spanish intellectuals 'delved into the reasons for Spain's decline and the nature of its identity', a preoccupation that quickly led to discussions about national regeneration or revitalization. Amid this widespread concern with the state of the nation, a group formally known as los Regeneracionistas, or the Regenerationists, aimed to provide an objective and scientific study of the causes of Spain's decline as a nation and to propose remedies. One of the most important contemporary issues to consider in relation to the Generation of 1898 is the continuing debate in scholarship over the existence of a clear distinction between these writers and modernism.
