Book Launch: The Age of Mass Child Removal in Spain, Dr Peter Anderson

Dr Peter Anderson will share ideas in a conversation with the Hispanist and journalist, Giles Tremlett and the editor of the Academic History section of Oxford University Press, Cathryn Steele.

The Instituto Cervantes in Manchester and Leeds collaborate with the Centre for the History of Ibero-America (CHIA) from the University of Leeds in the presentation of the new publication by the historian and director of CHIA, Dr Peter Anderson, entitled The Age of Mass Child Removal in Spain: Taking, Losing, and Fighting for Children, 1926–1945.

Media revelations that during and shortly after the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 the Franco regime removed tens of thousands of children from political opponents and placed them in care homes or with families loyal to the regime where they were educated to despise their parents’ beliefs sparked vigorous debate in Spain. To understand these ‘lost children of Francoism’, Dr Peter Anderson’s new book examines the rise from the nineteenth century of ideas of the ‘dangerous parent’ and the growing power of the state to remove children. It explores the removal of children before and during the early Franco regime and asks who lost children, how, and why.

The book also links removal practices in Spain to other countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States, all of which face uncomfortable questions about their mass child-removal policies: Spanish practices help us understand these cases too.

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