Books 2025: Nostalgia for Spain’s Dictatorship a Half-Century Later

Book: El Generalísimo: A Biography of Francisco Franco

Author: Giles Tremlett

Reviewed by: Kirk Bowman, professor at Georgia Tech‘s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and author of Soccer, Globalization, and Innovation:
The Beautiful Game in the 21st Century

2025 marked the 50th anniversary of dictator Francisco Franco’s death and the emergence of surveys in Spain revealing a growing nostalgia and embrace of Franco’s 36-year authoritarian regime. “Life was better under Franco” is now a popular social media trope. How do we understand contemporary fondness for fascism in Spain, Italy, Germany and other places?

Historian Giles Tremlett’s insightful, comprehensive, and readable biography reveals an enigma of a man. Readers can appreciate two facets of the dictator, and these can be embraced by those who love or hate him.

Franco was a bit of a buffoon, mediocre in physical and intellectual prowess, and devoid of charisma. He was also very insecure, surrounding himself with loyal sycophants who would see if El Generalísimo chuckled before they laughed at a joke. He was violent, brutal, willing to use excessive force to murder tens of thousands of innocents, and an enthusiastic believer in wild conspiracy theories: Freemasonry was public enemy number one and the Freemason-Jewish-Communist cabal was constructed and propagandized to prop up the regime.

Franco was also a man of incredible determination, action, and considered himself an expert on every issue. His self-confidence and belief in his own success often carried the day as he gained and then maintained power. He was wily and indecipherable, and able to successfully play Hitler, Mussolini, and eventually, the United States.

After getting through the first section of the book dealing with his youth, Tremlett’s work is a page-turner. El Generalísimo is highly recommended to understand Spain, the rise of fascism in the 1930s and ’40s, and the contemporary growth of neo-fascist movements.

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