Abstract

This review essay aims at surveying how historians have presented and assessed the Spanish transition to democracy in the last twenty years. After some introductory remarks, the article examines the three main general works which have been recently published on this topic. The author then considers historical publications which have dealt with specific facets of the phenomenon: which role the Monarchy as an institution and the King as a person have played; how social transformations and movements have conditioned the political process; how parties helped shape democratic institutions, and how a party system emerged from the transition.