This book reconsiders debates about historical memory from the perspective of the theory of emotions. Its main claim is that the demise of the Spanish empire in 1898 spurred a number of contradictory emotional responses, ranging from mourning and melancholia to indignation, pride, and shame. It shows how intellectuals sought to reimagine a post-Empire Spain by drawing on myth and employing a predominantly emotional register, a contention that departs from current scholarly depictions of emotional dimension of memory practices it opens up new ways of interpreting some of the most canonical essays in 20th-century Iberian literature. It also examines the profound implications the emotional attachment to imperial myths has had for the collective memory of the conquest and colonization of the Americas.