Like most Spaniards alive today, I was born after the death of Franco 50 years ago. Even for my parents’ generation, the dictatorship that lasted from 1939 until 20 November 1975 is today a distant bad dream. Growing up, the stories I heard were mostly about the post-Franco democratic transition, a time full of promise and energy as younger people set about rebuilding everything from scratch.

My mother, who was pregnant with me when she voted in the first free elections in 1977, talks about that time as the happiest of her life. International media reporting from that year described “a broad optimism” in a soon-to-be “healthy, modern, lively nation”.

Writing in October 1977, the philosopher and former political prisoner Julián Marías commented: “The Franco years seem incredibly distant; almost everything that seemed impossible has already taken place.” It had been less than two years since Franco’s death, and there was not yet a full democratic system or a constitution in place.

As in many European countries, those years were also marked by political violence and economic crises. One of my earliest memories is of fear, confusion and radio bulletins during the attempted coup d’etat in February 1981.

Still, looking back, it was extraordinary how Spain went from a poor, isolated, rural country to a dynamic democracy that, within a few........

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