Last fall Spain’s Banco Santander Central Hispano announced that it would pay $2.4 billion for a 20% stake in Philadelphia-based Sovereign Bank. It was a deal that didn’t surprise Wharton management professor Mauro Guillén who has been watching the strategic moves of the bank since the late 1980s. But Guillen’s interest goes beyond Banco Santander. In a recently published book titled The Rise of Spanish Multinationals: European Business in the Global Economy Guillén explores why and how Spanish companies in a variety of industries have acquired a prominent presence in the global economy and what this expansion means -- economically financially politically and socially -- for Spain and the rest of Europe.