AFTER THE FALL offers a vivid portrait of contemporary Spain at a time when interest in the country has rarely been greater - and how the current situation relates to wider political currents in the UK and the EU.
The political crisis in Catalonia has drawn the world's attention to a country that has lived through a decade of boom, bust, recession and recovery, and that is now engaged in an epic struggle to keep the state from falling apart. In this fascinating book, Tobias Buck investigates the origins of the post-2008 economic meltdown, and the fate of the Spaniards left behind by the crisis. He looks at the rise of Podemos, one of the most intriguing political phenomena to have emerged in Europe in recent years. He also considers the nation's historic traumas, with chapters on the dark legacy of the Franco dictatorship and the struggle to tell the history of violence in the Basque country and shed light on important social changes - like the arrival of millions of migrants from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and China - and asks why this sudden demographic shift has not prompted a spike in anti-migrant and far-right sentiment as it has elsewhere in Europe. Finally, the book examines the gravest challenge facing Spain today - the push for secession in Catalonia - and what this could mean for other regions in Europe.
