Modernity Versus Tradition: Beyond the Ideological Dispute

The process of implementing the liberal-bourgeois revolution was a transcendental event in Western history. The liberal revolutions of the eighteenth and, especially, nineteenth century, gave birth to a new world that sought to impose itself upon the traditional world, that of the Ancien Régime. The arrival of liberalism was not without conflicts, controversies, and dichotomies, which, on more than one occasion, were resolved on bloody battlefields and wars, both international and civil. The conflict between liberals and reactionaries generated a distinct material culture that amply illustrates the clash between these two worlds. This article delves into the effects this process had on the material culture of the time. To this end, several case studies of the Spanish nineteenth-century civil wars are presented, known as the Carlist Wars. We analyze the material culture of various archaeological sites comparatively with similar cases. The article concludes with a discussion of several of the aspects addressed: the conflict’s material expression, the dialectics between modernity and tradition, and its inherent contradictions.