Nation, identity and politics in a Castilian city: liberals and absolutists in Salamanca, 1814-1833

Abstract

The article is a work about the Spanish nation-building process starting from Ferdinand VII´s effective restoration in power. It is a study from a microanalytical perspective limited to the local sphere of Salamanca and made drawing on primary sources. It reconstructs the several phases of absolutist and liberal control in a local scope, pointing out the strong politicization of nation and identity, the naturalization of nation as identity reference, and the existence of some specific non-liberal views of Spanish nation and some not directly coming from the State apparatus.