The culmination of a half-century of historical investigation, A People Betrayed is not only the definitive history of Spain from 1876 to 2016, but also an absorbing narrative that becomes a lens for understanding the challenges that all democracies have faced in the modern world. As A People Betrayed demonstrates, Spain's decrepit political system led to defeat in 1898 at the hands of the United States and cost Spain the last of its major colonies. Paul Preston shows how the humiliation and economic degradation following the loss of empire brought forth a succession of feeble governments, culminating in the tragic Spanish Civil War and the rise of Francisco Franco's fascist dictatorship. The first historical work to discuss the continuities of political unrest and national anxiety in Spain up to the present, this sweeping history illuminates the vicious political cycle that continues to create a stark gulf between the people and the elite political powers who rule over them.