This chapter explores the right's view of the Spanish nation. It argues that what the vast majority of conservative nationalists have in common, whether politicians, churchmen, intellectuals, businessmen, or journalists, is a largely unreconstructed view of Spain's history. What they are defending with such passion and anguish amounts to a sort of internal irredentism, an imagined historic homeland that is being torn apart by invented identities. Confronting the past is a way of understanding the present. Conservative nationalists are diminished by their failure to do so, even on their own terms.
Keywords: Spanish nation, national identity, political right, conservative nationalists, democracy