THE BACCALAUREATE, THE FIRST LABORATORY OF IMPERIAL RESURRECTION: THE SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS OF FRANCO’S REGIME AND MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE,(1940-1950)

Abstract

n the core of power of the Francoist dictatorship, they were aware that in order to
completely wipe out the legacy of the Second Republic, weapons alone were not
enough. It was in this context that the regime’s ideologues considered that the only
way to erase the republican culture from memory, and to begin the ideological process
of restoring the empire and Hispanic culture, was to transfer the war to a new field:
education. On this battlefield, the history textbooks of Franco’s baccalaureate became
the ideal instruments for rooting in the imagination of Spanish students the project
of nation and national identity that the Franco regime sought to perpetuate. In
particular, to achieve the creation of a “New Man” in charge of building the “New
Spain”. For this paper we carried out a historical and historiographical analysis of
how Franco’s school textbooks interpreted and justified the loss of the American
Empire, paying special attention to the Mexican insurgent process.