Chapter 6 focuses on the 1960s internationalisation of the economy and the way in which, in the context of the Cold War, chemistry became a ‘neutral’ subject that contributed to the non-democratic modernisation of the country, again with major religious alliances. The chapter explores the apolitical, technocratic role of chemists and discusses how they undertook academic reforms and searched for international alliances in their own professional interests. It also situates a good part of that apolitical discourse in the context of the new international corporate chemical industry, which was established throughout the country from the early 1960s onwards. The technocratic educational reforms focused on the economic growth and industrial needs of ‘developmentalism’. Although in public they often enforced the neutral status of science, many chemists had no qualms about expressing their enthusiasm for the regime. Chemistry and technocracy can be approached, in particular, through the prominent role played by chemist Manuel Lora Tamayo as Franco’s minister, scientific expert and educational reformer.

Chapter 7 describes some of chemists’ strategies of resistance to totalitarianism and the co-construction of new, intermediate spaces. Going backwards chronologically, it explores the liberal ethos of the Spanish chemical community in exile after the Civil War and the way in which it evolved in the Latin American context in particular. It also highlights some chemists’ attempts to protect liberal values in the chemical industry, in the universities and in the public sphere in hostile, anti-liberal contexts such as Franco’s dictatorship, as well as how some of them survived as internal refugees. The exiled Latin American chemical community protected Republican values of internationalism and pacifism and combined them with a liberal, flexible relationship (in economic terms) with private chemical firms, but also frequent commitments in favour of public companies (oil, hormones and the extraction of natural products). Inside Spain, some chemists set their own limits of academic power and constructed their own shelters in the press and in their collaboration with private companies. Following the university crisis of the 1960s, and in spite of the official optimism about economic growth, some chemical shelters had begun to challenge the values of the dictatorship, which formally ended after Franco’s death on 20 November 1975.

Chapter 2 describes the role that chemists played in the construction of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). It explores how many of them became allies of the leftist policies of the new regime, with its dreams of secularism, liberal universalism and peace, as opposed to the dark images of chemical weapons of the First World War. The freethinking rationalism of the JAE placed chemistry in a comfortable position to highlight material progress and a positivistic scientific culture as solid allies of the new Republic. Within that framework, the chapter covers the opening in 1932 of the Instituto Nacional de Física y Química (INFQ) – nicknamed ‘The Rockefeller’ after the source of funding used to create it; the university reforms in teaching and experimental chemistry; the International Conference on Pure and Applied Chemistry held in Madrid in 1934; and further attempts to link academic chemistry to industrial growth, which challenges the frequent criticism of a supposedly overly academic chemistry. Utopian dreams of material progress opposed any use of chemicals for war purposes as a sign of the internationalism of the time, which supported the invitation of foreign chemists to visit Spain, as well as the sending of large numbers of young chemists for training abroad.

“Chapter 1 describes how, during the initial decades of the twentieth century, the Spanish chemical community experienced considerable growth and developed an ambitious plan of modernisation. Cosmopolitanism and the connection to a European network of chemical expertise became crucial targets for the academic and political authorities during the final decades of the Bourbon Restoration and the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. This dream of modernity materialised on several fronts: reforms in chemical training, new internationally orientated research schools, fellowships and exchange programmes and major projects to link academic chemistry to industry.Many chemists shared the liberal values of the JAE, but others, from more conservative positions, also used chemistry to strengthen their professional ambitions creating strong alliances with industry. Despite the social tensions of the 1910s and 1920s, chemical “modernity” basically meant the fight against “backwardness” through cosmopolitan research projects, and an ambitious renewal of the material culture of chemistry in terms of instruments, reagents and laboratories”

Chapter 5 analyses how, in the context of the international isolation of Francoist Spain in the early 1940s, autarchic discourses and projects for economic and industrial self-sufficiency gained prominence and guided the new policies. Raw materials, the way they were geographically distributed and the economics of their exploitation became state decisions to which chemists contributed in reframing academic disciplines and industrial endeavours. This chapter also stresses the distinction between autarky (referring to economic self-sufficiency) and autarchy (referring to autocratic political rule). Under the influence of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, chemicals became important agents for the materialisation of the early Francoism. Industrial chemistry training evolved from the traditional technical chemistry books and subjects to a more ‘modern’ approach to chemical engineering. Finally, chemical diplomacy and chemists’ active role as ‘ambassadors’ of the regime provide additional reasons to revisit autarky/autarchy, as well as pointing out some lines of continuity with the scientific culture of the pre-Civil War period.

The role of chemistry in twentieth-century Spain tells us a lot about the status and the nature of chemistry as a profession in the last century and the ways in which chemists as experts in academia and industry co-constructed different political regimes. In a way, this is a book about a paradox: with chemistry being frequently presented as an apolitical, neutral, objective, technocratic field, it has played a highly political role in our age of extremes, from the German science-based heritage that preceded the First World War to the petrochemical and instrumental revolution in chemistry during the Cold War. Synthetic molecules in the laboratory and on an industrial scale, standard chemical training in specialisations such as inorganic, organic, physical, medical, industrial and technical chemistry (all of them emerging fields in universities during the nineteenth century) and the mass consumption of colorants, drugs and plastics constituted a complex sociotechnical network, in close alliance with political and economic elites, but apparently detached from any moral responsibility. The lessons from the Spanish case can be extrapolated to other countries.