Another great article from this week's Guardian special on Spain
"And so began the great historical anomaly of 20th-century Spain, the only country where fascism won a war and remained in power for almost four decades. And not only was the mighty modernising drive of the Second Republic stopped abruptly in its tracks; Franco took Spain right back to the middle of the 19th century.
To give you an example: the Second Republic's penal code, one of the world's most advanced, was repealed in order to reinstate the laws of 1851. Women who had been granted the vote in 1933 – later only than in Britain, Australia and New Zealand – became perpetual minors, with no rights to inherit, manage their property or sign legal papers. The war – which plunged the country into unprecedented hardship, from which it wouldn't even begin to recover until 25 years later, in part thanks to tourism – was officially designated a crusade, on the basis that it was God's struggle against the Devil."
Read the rest here, why Spain is no longer different
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/01/spain-different-no-more
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