Imperial Educación: Race and Republican Motherhood in the Nineteenth-Century Americas by Thomas Genova (review)

Abstract

selling of products as agencies increasingly become tied to US and Eu ro pean counter parts. There existed a growing belief among these professionals that “Spain was in many ways more alike than dif er ent from its Western Eu ro­ pean neighbors, and that Spain’s future lay in becoming a member of a pros­ perous, Western cap i tal ist, international community” (141) and that advertising had a key role to play in making this vis i ble. Attention is placed, for example, on the publicizing of the introduction of British­ inspired unisex clothing and the profound sociocultural transformations this addresses. A newly professionalized generation of admen (144) was in place and ready to make modernization (at least in cultural terms) real. Readers will also enjoy the history behind the state­ inspired “Spain is Dif er ent” slogan and its manipu­ lation from state­ run campaigns to international advertising meetings (157–159). Fi nally, Chapter 5: “On That Day, Borders Did Not Exist”: Department Stores and Social Liberalization in Spain, 1960–1975 studies the upheaval in socio­ cultural and gender norms that collapsed during the final years of the dic­ tatorship (1960–1975) as it contrasts the close­ knit Francoist­ leaning Galerías Preciados with its more progressive and countercultural US– Spanish counterpart, Sears Roebuck of Spain. The chapter addresses the expansion of the department store to all major Spanish urban centers as well as discussing the importance of interstore tourism and the development of a business cul­ ture unique to each enterprise. Buying into Change is an excellent study of mass consumer culture in Spain. It ofers well­ documented examples of the internationalization of Spanish cul­ tural mores through the rise of purchasing power of citizens who normal­ ized the state of po liti cal afairs with the betterment of their daily lives and emotional affiliation with all things international.