Spain was long held to be the model for peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. Yet it was the inquiry of the Spanish Ministry of Justice into “enforced disappearances“ in Argentina and Chile that first led to a critical engagement with their own past. The inquiry focused on the “vanished” people of the Civil War and Franco-era repression. Nina Elsemann demonstrates which historical-political discourses and experiences were adopted in Spain, particularly from Argentina. She characterizes the change in the public’s relationship to history as the effect of global dynamics and interconnections. The volume was awarded the FU Berlin’s Ernst Reuter Prize in 2011.