Cultural Diplomacy in Southern Europe

This book offers a comprehensive overview of how culture, science, technology and academic activity functioned as instruments of cultural diplomacy and soft power in Spain, Portugal and Greece during the interwar and Cold War periods.

Cultural Diplomacy in Southern Europe is particularly timely due to the growing academic focus on the role of culture and science as relevant actors in countries’ diplomatic strategies, even as the current geopolitical climate appears to be altering the roles of traditional international actors. The idea of a common Europe as an area of freedom and progress has been founded on Europe’s reputation as a centre of culture and knowledge. At a time when social tensions are fuelling attempts to redefine the European identity, this book explores the potential at both the national and international levels for science and culture to serve as political tools, drivers of economic and social modernisation and sources of power.

This volume will interest scholars and students of the History of Cultural and Scientific Diplomacy, 20th-Century European History and International Relations.

Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA) license.

Marició Janué i Miret is Professor of Contemporary History in the Department of Humanities at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Her areas of current research interests focus on the role of culture in Spanish-German relations in the period of National Socialism and on the re-establishment of Spanish-German cultural diplomacy in the postwar period.

Eva March is Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Humanities at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Her current research addresses cultural transfers and methodological issues related to patterns of artistic reception and the ideological and political dimensions of art exhibitions in the first half of the twentieth century.

José-Miguel Pacheco Castelao is Professor (retired) of Applied Mathematics at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and a member of the Royal Canary Academy of Sciences. He has published in Archive for the History of Exact Science, Science in Context, Boletim da Sociedade Portuguesa de Matemática, among others.

Albert Presas i Puig is Associate Professor at the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. His research career has been mainly focused on the study of knowledge transfer mechanisms from the generating countries to countries located on the scientific periphery and the role of science and technology in international settings.