Pablo
León Aguinaga
After graduating from the Universidad de Navarra (2002), I began my career as as researcher in international history at the Instituto de Historia, CSIC, later earning a PhD in History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2008). My postdoctoral stage took place in the United States, at Georgetown University (2009-2013), from where I joined the Centro Universitario de la Defensa-Academia General Militar, combining teaching and research for over a decade (2013-2023). I joined the CSIC as a Tenured Scientist in December 2023.
My work pays special attention to the various dimensions of the global projection of the United States, such as cultural trade and transfers, propaganda and public diplomacy, military assistance or the role of banks, private agents and financial and commercial networks.
Among others, I am a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) and the Association of Contemporary History of Spain (AHC).
Books:
- Pablo León Aguinaga, Philip W. Bonsal. Diario de un diplomático norteamericano en España, 1944-1947. Estados Unidos ante la dictadura franquista (PUZ, Zaragoza, forthcoming).
- José A. Montero Jiménez y Pablo León Aguinaga, Estados Unidos y el mundo. La metamorfosis del poder americano (1890-1952) (Síntesis: Madrid, 2019).
- Pablo León Aguinaga, Sospechos habituales. El cine norteamericano, Estados Unidos y la España franquista, 1939-1960 (CSIC: Madrid, 2010).
Selection of articles and book chapters:
- José A. Montero Jiménez y Pablo León Aguinaga, "La democracia americana, su lugar en el mundo y la segunda administración Trump: tres claves históricas", Ayer (2026): forthcoming.
- Pablo León-Aguinaga, "The Chase, the World Commerce Corporation, and the early Cold War Rehabilitation of Franco's Spain," in E.. Sáenz Francés, ed., Foes to Friends. Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom from the Civil War to the Cold War (Boydell & Brewer, Tamesis, 2025): 38-73.
- Pablo León Aguinaga, "Philip Bonsal, un diplomático norteamericano ante la cuestión española", en L. Delgado, Somehow Different. España vista desde Estados Unidos (Catarata: Madrid, 2023)
- Pablo León-Aguinaga and Lorenzo Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla, "The Deployment of U.S. Military Assistance to Spain in the 1950s: Limited Modernisation and Strategic Dependence", Cold War History", 21/1 (2021): 55-70.
- Pablo León Aguinaga: "Los programas de formación para la Mútua Defensa entre España y Estados Unidos en los años cincuenta", Ayer, 116 (2019): 49-76.
- Pablo León-Aguinaga: "The Trouble with Propaganda. World War II, Franco, and the Origins of U.S. Postwar Public Diplomacy", International History Review, 37/2 (2015): 342-365.
- Pablo León Aguinaga: "Los canales de la propaganda norteamericana en España, 1945-1960", Ayer, 75 (2009): 133-158.
- Pablo León Aguinaga, "State-Corporate Relations, Film Trade and the Cold War: The Failure of MPEAA's Strategy in Spain, 1945-1960", Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 29/4 (2009): 483-504.
Ongoing:
- "Economic diplomacy and transnational networks. Spain and the United States: Trade, International Finance, and Foreign Policy from the Great Depression to the Cold War (1930s-1960s)" (PID2022-136825NB-100)