Unfolding Peace via Integration and ‘Europe’ as Freedom in Madariaga’s Intellectual Legacy from the Interwar Period

This article aims to shed light on the impact of Salvador de Madariaga in the crafting of the concepts of ‘peace via integration’ and ‘Europe’ as freedom, as illustrated by the application of his hard-earned lessons as Chief of Disarmament in the League of Nations from 1922 and their incorporation into the potential future democratization for a post-Francoist Spain via an eventual European Community accession in post-war Europe. During the interwar period, Madariaga honed his work on the implications of a sustainable peace, an intellectual legacy he amplified as part of his position as Spanish Studies Professor at the University of Oxford in 1928. He would later revisit these ideas after the end of WWII and begin projecting them as part of the Liberal Manifesto presented at Wadham College, Oxford in 1947. Indeed, Madariaga’s interwar period depiction of ‘a future which lies beyond our own boundaries’ became the starting point of an argument concerning the foundations and potentialities for increased integration in a continent reawakening from war and radical divides. Remarkably, Madariaga’s blueprints outlined peace and freedom as cornerstones of that ‘United Europe’ to come, not only through political activism but also by means of an engaged ‘cultural agency’.