Women on War in Spain's Long Nineteenth Century

Christine Arkinstall is a professor of Spanish at the University of Auckland.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: From behind the Lines to Writing War’s Texts: Redrawing the Boundaries of War and Gender1. Love of Nation and Women’s Citizenship in Rosario de Acuña’s Amor a la patria (1877)2. Gender, Casticismo, and Imperial Nations in Spain’s fin de siècle: Blanca de los Ríos’s Sangre española (1899)3. Charity, Patria, and Painting War’s Pain: Concepción Arenal’s Writings, 1869–794. The Monstrosity of War and Justpeace: Concepción Arenal’s Cuadros de la guerra and Ensayo sobre el Derecho de Gentes5. Getting Intimate with Empire: Fin-de-Siècle Women Writing a Psychology of the Disaster 6. Disordering the Imperial Home: Blanca de los Ríos’s La niña de Sanabria (1907)7. Purity of Blood in the National Family? Spain’s War in Morocco in Carmen de Burgos’s En la guerra (Episodios de Melilla) (1909)8. Between Feminist Aspirations and Pacifist Ideals: Burgos’s Essays on World War I and Women in War9. Denouncing War’s Broken Syntax: Burgos’s World War I NovellasConclusion: Transforming Moral Maps, Then and Now NotesReferencesIndex

“Arkinstall makes a persuasive argument that Spanish women’s preoccupation with war has been underappreciated. This study recognizes both the complexity of women’s collaborative activities and their conflicting positions on the legitimacy of war. An added bonus is the book’s illustrations, several of which depict women’s war activities and help to solidify the argument regarding women’s symbolic significance. A follow-up volume on twentieth-century wars in which women also play key physical and symbolic roles would be most welcome.”