This fluent, accessible and richly informed study, based on much previously unexplored archival material, concerns the history of Gibraltar following its military conquest in 1704, after which sovereignty of the territory was transferred from Spain to Britain and it became a British fortress and colony. Unlike virtually all other studies of Gibraltar, this book focuses on the civilian population. It shows how a substantial multi-ethnic Roman Catholic and Jewish population derived mainly from the littorals and islands of the Mediterranean became settled in British Gibraltar, much of it in defiance of British efforts to control entry and restrict residence. With Gibraltar’s political future still today contested this is a matter of considerable political importance. Community and identity: The making of modern Gibraltar since 1704 will appeal to both a scholarly and a lay readership interested particularly in the ‘Rock’ or more generally in nationality and identity formation, colonial administration, decolonisation and the Iberian peninsula.
