Canessa Barrier and Bridge

Annotation

As Brexit looms ever closer, one of the many problem raised by the UK's departure from the EU is the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, which shares a land border with Spain across which approximately 40% of Gibraltar's labour force cross daily. Real questions are being raised on the future of this border and how it will be managed, but one can only understand its future based on a sound knowledge of its evolution. Barrier and Bridge explores the recent history of the border, drawing on documentary and oral history accounts on both sides. It offers a human, as much as a political history, and argues that whereas at the beginning of the twentieth century there was virtually no border and strong cultural, economic, linguistic, and ethnic ties that straddled it, by the end of the century the border denoted a much more profound sense of difference between the populations.