A School for Hatred: The Family Demons in the History of Spain

National histories are stories about a protagonist, the people, who remain alive throughout the centuries. History cannot be written without documents or facts, but historical accounts are structured through meta-stories, which make sense of and give meaning to the global historical process. From the fifteenth century and until the twentieth century, the History of Spain books were constructed as narratives about a split identity. This was due to the omnipresent fear of people with hidden identities: "marranos", protestant spies, traitors and fifth columnists and then freemasons or liberals, nationalists and communists. All this created an endless discourse generator of hatred about treason and hidden traitors.