Host: Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History
Guest: Lisa Kirschenbaum, Professor of History, West Chester University
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which pitted a left-leaning Republic, suported by the Soviet Union, against right-leaning nationalists, supported by the Nazi, more than 35,000 people from more than 50 countries went to Spain to fight against fascism for the Republic.
Today’s guest, Lisa Kirschenbaum of West Chester University in Pennsylvania, talks about who some of those people were and what role the Soviet Union played in training them and welcoming them as exiles.
With the establishment of Manila as a Spanish trading port in 1571, one of the most important economic links in the pre-modern world was established. Spanish silver flowed from the mines of Potosí (in modern Bolivia) through Manila to Ming-dynasty China. The interplay between these two empires created a global financial system that linked far flung parts of the world in a way that mirrors the 20th century phenomenon that has become known as “globalization.”
What role did Texas play in the American revolution? (What–Texas? It wasn’t even a state yet!) And yet, Spain and its empire–including what is now the Lone Star State, did play a role in defeating the British Empire in North America. New archival work is lending light on the ways that Spain, smarting from its loss of the Floridas to Britain in the Seven Years War, backed the American colonists’ push for independence.
