In this book, José Álvarez Junco reflects on the weight of traumatic pasts in human societies (civil wars, genocides, dictatorships), their potential political exploitation, and their manipulation to serve current objectives. Although his focus is the Spanish Civil War and the early Franco regime, he compares them with Nazi Germany, Pinochet's Chile, the Colombia of guerrillas and paramilitaries, and apartheid-era South Africa, among other cases.

The book unfolds on three levels: the construction of the collective image, the historical narrative, and the tracing of what remains of that trauma. From the first perspective, he recalls the complacent and self-pitying image that Spaniards had constructed of themselves in previous decades or centuries and how they integrated those brutal events into it, especially in the interpretations developed by their most prestigious intellectuals. From the second part onward, the author recounts what happened in Spain: the origins of the political crisis of the 1930s, the unfolding of events during that period, the harsh repression of the 1940s, the subsequent evolution of the dictatorship, and its overcoming during the Transition. The third part addresses what to do after that trauma, what policies have been implemented regarding the victims, and what policies could be put in place to finally overcome it, if such a thing is even possible.

The debate about the appropriateness of remembering or forgetting is inexhaustible, and the author does not offer a definitive answer here. Drawing on his extensive experience as a historian and always adopting a detached and international perspective, he explores its complexity and the importance of avoiding simplistic and Manichean explanations in order to foster social harmony.