From Allies to Enemies

To understand the turnaround in Spain’s stance towards Japan during World War II, this book goes beyond mutual contacts and explains through images, representations, and racism why Madrid aimed at declaring war on Japan but not against the III Reich -as London ironically replied when it learned of Spain’s warmongering against one of the Axis members. Florentino Rodao is a Professor of Modern History at Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. He has two Ph. D’s (Complutense and the University of Tokyo) and has also taught in the universities of Ateneo de Manila, Keio, Wisconsin-Madison, Puerto Rico and Tokyo University of Foreign Affairs. As visiting scholar and such, he has been at Australian National, Tokyo at Komaba, Harvard, South Pacific at Laucala, California at Berkeley and Hawai’I at Manoa. Rodao has worked extensively on Spanish interactions with East Asia and the Pacific. Besides edited books and articles, he authored Españoles en Siam, 1540-1939. Unacontribución al estudio de la presencia hispana en Asia Oriental (1997), and has published extensively on the Philippines, such as Franquistas sin Franco. Una historia alternativa de la Guerra Civil Española desde Filipinas (2012). He has also published for wider audiences, such as La Soledad del País Vulnerable. Japón since 1945 (2019).