The nineteenth century was a period of wars, revolutions and revolts. The continental wars at the end of the eighteenth century and the French Revolutionary Wars preceded the fall of the Ancien Régime. The new Spanish liberal state inherited the centralist tendency of the Bourbons and set about political, economic and cultural unification of all the territories. The Catalan industrial bourgeoisie was too weak and disorganised to lead the liberal reforms. The new state model was seen from two different perspectives in Catalonia: on the one hand the traditionalist concept of Carlism, and on the other the progressive and federalist-inspired republicanism. Both tendencies called for a political arena specific to Catalonia. The new state was established without an adequate political voice for Catalonia as there was no recognition of its particular case.
