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Two experts on Spain’s turbulent recent history discuss how a country racked by civil war ultimately made the transition from dictatorship to democracy. The Spanish Civil War was characterised by atrocities on both sides, so how was the country able to restore the monarchy and a democratic system, and what does the future hold for a Spain weighed down by today’s economic problems?

William Chislett is a Madrid-based journalist and writer. He covered the transition to democracy between 1975 and 1978 for The Times. In his latest book Spain: What Everyone Needs to Know, he tells the full story of Spain and explains how attempts were made to lay to rest the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War.

Writer and critic Jeremy Treglown, a former editor of the Times Literary Supplement, writes regularly on the country. In Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936, he takes a fresh look at recent Spanish history and examines how people remember what happened. He talks to descendants of those killed, attends a service dedicated to Franco’s memory, and examines the monuments, paintings, novels and films that vividly recorded the events of the time.