Gibraltar: 'A Dagger in the Spine of Spain?'

by Gareth Stockey

The 'problem' of Gibraltar has been a constant source of diplomatic tension between Britain and Spain for over three hundred years. Franco himself described the Rock as a 'dagger in the spine of Spain', and it was during his dictatorship that Spain's diplomatic campaign to recover Gibraltar reached its height with the closing of the frontier in 1969. Given this background, it has long been assumed by historians and commentators that relations between Gibraltar and its Spanish neighbour have also been strained. Gareth Stockey rejects this assumption, and demonstrates that relations across the frontier had in fact been cordial for most of the period of British occupation of the Rock. The focus of this study is the Gibraltar-Spanish frontier. Rather than seeing the frontier as a physical entity -- separating Gibraltar from its Spanish neighbour -- the frontier is viewed as a process, through which the communities on either side of it fostered intimate social, cultural, political and
economic links. Ins

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2009