American friends. Salvador de Madariaga y sus redes en los Estados Unidos (1927-1959)

Abstract

The American factor is essential to understand the work and life history of Salvador de Madariaga, who between December 1927 and June 1959 made ten tours of the United States. In the period prior to the Second World War he did so in the name of the ideals inspired by the Wilsonian project, the liberalism and the universalist ecumenism of his American friends; during the Cold War, as a watchman of Europe and a bearer of the liberal torch in the face of the evils of totalitarianism - especially the Soviet one - and of authoritarianism - without exduding the Iberian - but also against those he denounced as myths forged by demagoguery of democracies. His career reflects the observable evolution in the field of international relations, but also the open dispute to safeguard the essence of liberalism. His provocative ideas and his knowledge of the transatlantic networks allowed Madariaga to become the decisive protagonist of those processes. The analysis of the valuable documentation of the Madariaga Fund of the Instituto José Cornide de Estudios Coruñeses, and that of the custody in the Archivo General de La Administración in Alcalá de Henares (AGA), the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence (HAEU), the archives of the Congress Library in Washington DC, and the Public Library, Columbia University and the Rockefeller Archives in New York, allow us to immerse ourselves in the transcendental work of Salvador de Madariaga in the transatlantic sphere.