Buying into Change

Mass Consumption, Dictatorship, and Democratization in Franco's Spain, 1939-1982

Alejandro J. Gómez del Moral

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781496205063
• eBook ISBN: 9781496226303
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

2023 Hagley Prize for Best Book in Business History Buying into Change examines how the development of a mass consumer society under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (1939–1975) inserted Spain into transnational consumer networks and set the stage for Spain's transition to democracy during the late 1970s. This transition is broadly significant to both a Spanish public still struggling to redefine their society after Franco and to scholars who have long debated the origins of Spain's current democracy, yet many aspects of it remain largely unexamined. Buying into Change incorporates mass consumption into our understanding of Spain's democratic transition by tracing the spread and social impact of new foreign-influenced department stores, of imported innovations such as modern mass advertising, and of consumer magazines that promoted foreign products. Initially, these enterprises backed Franco's conservative policies, and the regime in turn encouraged consumption in order to improve its image both domestically and abroad. Spain's new globally oriented commerce ultimately sold retailers and shoppers not just foreign ways of buying and selling but also subversive ideas. Imported 1960s fashions brought along countercultural notions on issues such as gender equality. And as Spaniards consumed more like their foreign neighbors, they increasingly viewed themselves as cosmopolitan and European and identified with liberal political conditions abroad, undermining Francoism's doctrine of national exceptionalism, thus laying the social foundations for democratization and European integration in Franco's wake.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. World-Class Stores and (Inter)national Ambassadors
• 2. Imagining a New Señora Consumer
• 3. (Super)Marketing Western Modernity
• 4. “You Can Achieve Anything Nowadays If You Have Good Publicity”
• 5. “On That Day, Borders Did Not Exist”
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Alejandro J. Gómez del Moral