María Nagore-Ferrer, ‘Book Review: Sandie Holguín, Flamenco 

Nation. The Construction of Spanish National Identity’, in: Studies on 
National Movements 6 (2020). 

Book Review 

Sandie Holguín, Flamenco Nation. The Construction of 

Spanish National Identity. Madison, Wisconsin: The 

University of Wisconsin Press, 2019, 361 pp, 40 illustrations. 

ISBN 9780299321802 

 

In May 1847, the American traveller S. Teackle Wallis arrived in Seville 

in the middle of a wave of protests against the rise in the price of grain. 

Two days after witnessing a violent riot in the tobacco factory, he 

attended a ‘private ballet’, in which ‘a black-eyed, gypsy-looking girl, one 

of the cigarreras of the riot’ featured prominently. Her dance reflected 

some of the fury that erupted two days previously. This scene, which 

excellently depicts some of the topics with which Spanish ‘exoticism’ is 

viewed by romantic travellers, is used by Sandie Holguín to introduce a 

subject as attractive as it is complex: the role of flamenco in the 

construction of Spanish national identity.  

Both the title of the book – Flamenco Nation – and the illustration on the 

cover are provocative. At first glance, one could assume that this is a 

book that provides an external view of flamenco as a symbol of an exotic 

Spain that has attracted many travellers and tourists, but is not 

recognized by the Spanish themselves. Nothing, however, could be 

further from the truth. The author, a historian with a number of previous 

publications on Spain’s contemporary history, among them the book 

Creating Spaniards: Culture and National Identity in Republican Spain 



Studies on National Movements 6 (2020) | Book Reviews 

| 2 María Nagore-Ferrer 

(University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), examines with depth and 

accuracy this complex subject. 

The work stems from a question that precisely reflects the afore-

mentioned conundrum: ‘How did flamenco, castigated as a degenerate 

form of song and dance associated with both the Gypsies, a despised 

ethnic minority in Spain, and Andalusia, a region often derided as 

backward, become inexorably tied to Spain's national identity? Why did 

flamenco persist as a symbol of the nation when so many elites within 

Spain worked feverishly for nearly a century to excise it from the 

country?’ (pp. 7-8). To answer these questions, Holguín carries out an 

extensive analysis that begins in the late eighteenth century and 

continues through to 1975. Her research is not focused on flamenco as a 

form of musical expression, although she does outline in chapter 1 the 

origin and evolution of the genre in its essential elements (toque, cante 

and baile), to initiate the reader who may be unfamiliar with the origins 

of flamenco. She instead approaches the subject from a holistic 

perspective, by placing ‘the evolution of this performance within the 

larger Spanish and European historical, cultural, and political trends of 

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ (p. 8). This is one of the 

successful aspects of the work, which goes beyond the traditional 

approaches in the study of flamenco, in favour of a transnational 

perspective, examining both the internal and external images of Spain in 

the construction of its national identity. In reference to the discussion on 

national identity, some statements by the author could be refuted, such 

as ‘over the course of the nineteenth century, flamenco became reified as 

one of two major expressions of Spanish national identity – the other one 

being bullfighting’. However, her analysis of complex concepts such as 

nationalism, regionalism or national identity is exemplary. 



Studies on National Movements 6 (2020) | Book Reviews 

 

 María Nagore-Ferrer                       3 |  

Flamenco Nation is composed of three parts divided into seven chapters, 

preceded by a documented introduction and ended with a final coda, a 

glossary, notes, an extensive bibliography and a useful onomastic index. 

After the introduction, which gives a thorough historiographical review 

and sets out the main bases of the study, the first part, ‘Setting the stage’, 

is divided into two chapters. The first of which is an overview of the 

history of flamenco, its roots and how it evolved up until the early days 

of the Restoration (1875). The author makes a commendable effort of 

synthesis, founded on a great deal of interdisciplinary literature on the 

subject, even if this synthesis does result in some inaccuracies when it 

comes to defining the particularities that set flamenco apart from other 

pre-flamenco and Andalusian popular music forms. Chapter 2, ‘The 

Perils of Flamenco in Restoration Spain, 1875-1923’, explores the 

phenomenon of antiflamenquismo during the Restoration period (1875-

1923) amongst three distinct elite groups, the Catholic Church and its 

conservative allies, left-leaning intellectuals and politicians, and the 

leaders of revolutionary workers' movements. This reaction coincides 

with the rise of flamenco as a popular spectacle, especially in the cafés 

cantantes of Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville. Here we see the full force of 

the contradiction interrogated at the outset of the book: while flamenco 

grew as a popular mass spectacle, the elites who considered themselves 

‘guardians of the Spanish national identity’ rejected it.  

The second part, ‘Flamenco on the regional and international stage’, 

examines the different perceptions of flamenco, widening the lens to 

incorporate both an international and regionalist points of view. 

Chapters 3 and 4 explore the cases of Catalonia and Andalusia 

respectively. The first describes the opposition by the emerging force of 

Catalan nationalism, that tries to counteract the influence of flamenco by 

promoting manifestations they considered their own, such as the 



Studies on National Movements 6 (2020) | Book Reviews 

| 4 María Nagore-Ferrer 

sardana or choral singing.  Chapter 4 focuses on Andalusian regionalism 

through the figure of Blas Infante who is considered to be ‘the father of 

the Andalusian nation’, and his efforts to define flamenco as a worthy art 

form. Especially interesting is Chapter 5, which moves away from Spain 

to international exhibitions, examining how Spanish elites wanted to 

have their nation represented and how that projected national identity 

failed to live up to their expectations on the world stage. The chapter also 

cites the strives of various avant-garde artists, such as García Lorca, 

Manuel de Falla or Debussy, to elevate the status of flamenco to that of a 

veritable art.  

The third part, ‘Flamenco and the Franco regime’, through the last two 

chapters, grapples with the Franco regime’s ambivalence towards using 

flamenco as a principal marker of Spanish identity. Chapter 6 reveals that 

the regime, with the help of the Catholic Church and the leaders of the 

Spanish Falange, wanted to purify the Spanish culture in accordance with 

the principles of national-catholicism, enhancing the patriotic spirit 

through the activity of regional Spanish choirs and dance groups. It was 

a way of homogenising Spanish folklore, and establishing a new kind of 

national identity, one of ‘unity in difference’, and of suppressing the 

musical supremacy of flamenco. Finally, Chapter 7 looks at the way the 

Franco regime, in conjunction with a developing Spanish tourist 

industry, changed course yet again to promote flamenco in order to 

bolster tourism industry in Spain. This tactic once again perpetuated the 

same old stereotypes.  

Holguín ends the book with a Coda that guides us back to the present, 

where the dynamics between globalization and regional autonomy have 

once again transformed contemporary flamenco practices. 



Studies on National Movements 6 (2020) | Book Reviews 

 

 María Nagore-Ferrer                       5 |  

Throughout the volume, the author's ability to rigorously, clearly and 

attractively present the topics is evident. She combines the handling of a 

large number of sources and references with anecdotes and illustrations, 

and grabs the reader's attention with phrases like this one that opens 

chapter 1: ‘Contrariness gave birth to flamenco’. A clear didactic vocation 

is also apparent in the structure of the book itself, which includes 

summaries and recapitulations at the beginning of each section. But 

beyond the formal aspects, the book provides an interesting and 

necessary insight into the subject of flamenco, which is increasingly 

present in academic literature. In short, it is essential reading in better 

understanding the place of flamenco in contemporary Spain. 

María Nagore-Ferrer 

Universidad Complutense de Madrid