senators could be present. The UCD also invited me, and I became, in effect, the American representative. I was seated in the front row in the visitors' section, beside foreign dignitaries who in some cases had been chiefs of government or heads of state. Margaret Thatcher attended and gave a speech. Hugh Thomas came with Thatcher's entourage as advisor and introduced me to her, only six months before she was to win her first parliamentary elections.
I thoroughly enjoyed the congress, and realized that it would constitute the height of my otherwise nonexistent political career. Unión de Centro Democrático was the only Spanish political organization with which I have ever felt thoroughly identified, its role in the establishment of Spanish democracy being absolutely fundamental, given the limitations of the Right on the one hand and the confusions of the Socialists on the other. It never became a tightly structured and fully unified party and did not always enjoy the best leadership, but for five years its role was crucial, and in the twenty-first century I would dedicate my book The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936 (2005) to Suárez and his colleagues in recognition of their decisive accomplishments, succeeding where the Second Republic had failed.
Since the 1970s I had progressively divided my time more and more between work on Spain and the comparative analysis of contemporary European history. This involved two dimensions: (1) continuation of the work on Portugal, and (2) the study of "generic fascism," the latter involving more activity than the former. Portuguese history had received a little more attention in the United States when a number of Hispanists, together with one or two Spanish scholars teaching in the country, formed the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (SSPHS) in 1969-70. The society would play a major role in stimulating and focusing research on Iberian history from that point on, and also in furthering scholarly ties between historians in Spain and the United States, but the attention that it could give to Portugal would obviously be limited.
An opportunity to develop a major focus on Portugal suddenly emerged at the University of Wisconsin in the spring of 1972, when I found that the university's West European Studies Program had a little money remaining in its budget at the end of the academic year. I proposed the immediate convening of a small conference to form a group for the study of contemporary Portugal. This was approved, and I invited the only five North American colleagues I could find who were doing work on contemporary Portugal in history and the social sciences. Thus in June 1972 in Madison we formed the International Conference Group on Portugal (ICGP), the first such entity anywhere outside Portugal, with the exception of literary studies. Douglas Wheeler of the University of New Hampshire became the secretary of the conference group and its indispensable leader for more than three decades. The ICGP would play a pioneering role, sponsoring a long series of conferences, publications, and eventually its own journal, the Portuguese Studies Review . Nonetheless, when it held its first full conference at the University of New Hampshire in October 1973, six months before the outbreak of the Portuguese Revolution, that event was not predicted by a single participant. So much for the capacity for prediction on the part of the social sciences.
By the 1980s it was observed that the era had passed in which foreign Hispanists might play a dominant role in the historiography dealing with contemporary Spain, given the democratization of the country and the great expansion of research and publication by Spanish historians, more interested in contemporary history than in any other period. This was obviously the case, the special role of Hispanists being most relevant amid the particular conditions of the 1950s and 1960s.
In normal circumstances, then, does the
I thoroughly enjoyed the congress, and realized that it would constitute the height of my otherwise nonexistent political career. Unión de Centro Democrático was the only Spanish political organization with which I have ever felt thoroughly identified, its role in the establishment of Spanish democracy being absolutely fundamental, given the limitations of the Right on the one hand and the confusions of the Socialists on the other. It never became a tightly structured and fully unified party and did not always enjoy the best leadership, but for five years its role was crucial, and in the twenty-first century I would dedicate my book The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936 (2005) to Suárez and his colleagues in recognition of their decisive accomplishments, succeeding where the Second Republic had failed.
Since the 1970s I had progressively divided my time more and more between work on Spain and the comparative analysis of contemporary European history. This involved two dimensions: (1) continuation of the work on Portugal, and (2) the study of "generic fascism," the latter involving more activity than the former. Portuguese history had received a little more attention in the United States when a number of Hispanists, together with one or two Spanish scholars teaching in the country, formed the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (SSPHS) in 1969-70. The society would play a major role in stimulating and focusing research on Iberian history from that point on, and also in furthering scholarly ties between historians in Spain and the United States, but the attention that it could give to Portugal would obviously be limited.
An opportunity to develop a major focus on Portugal suddenly emerged at the University of Wisconsin in the spring of 1972, when I found that the university's West European Studies Program had a little money remaining in its budget at the end of the academic year. I proposed the immediate convening of a small conference to form a group for the study of contemporary Portugal. This was approved, and I invited the only five North American colleagues I could find who were doing work on contemporary Portugal in history and the social sciences. Thus in June 1972 in Madison we formed the International Conference Group on Portugal (ICGP), the first such entity anywhere outside Portugal, with the exception of literary studies. Douglas Wheeler of the University of New Hampshire became the secretary of the conference group and its indispensable leader for more than three decades. The ICGP would play a pioneering role, sponsoring a long series of conferences, publications, and eventually its own journal, the Portuguese Studies Review . Nonetheless, when it held its first full conference at the University of New Hampshire in October 1973, six months before the outbreak of the Portuguese Revolution, that event was not predicted by a single participant. So much for the capacity for prediction on the part of the social sciences.
By the 1980s it was observed that the era had passed in which foreign Hispanists might play a dominant role in the historiography dealing with contemporary Spain, given the democratization of the country and the great expansion of research and publication by Spanish historians, more interested in contemporary history than in any other period. This was obviously the case, the special role of Hispanists being most relevant amid the particular conditions of the 1950s and 1960s.
In normal circumstances, then, does the
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