Spanish-language multinationals. The internationalization of the Spanish publishing industry (1898-2008)

Abstract

This article examines the internationalization process of the Spanish publishing industry. It shows that the Spanish publishers became international in the early 20th century and did so by exploiting their language and culture advantages in the Latin American market. This promising process suffered a major setback in the mid 1930s due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and
subsequent changes in Spain’s political and economic regime during the 1940s and 1950s. When the publishing industry resumed its export activity in the 1960s, Spanish publishers started to search for new markets in Western Europe while further exploiting their language and cultural
advantages in Latin America. This allowed them to grow beyond the Spanish-speaking world and, building on their accumulated experience, to consolidate as a global sector that ranks fourth in the world and is growing at a high rate in the Americas and in Europe.