Product Description

This Very Short Introduction offers a powerfully-written explanation of the war's complex origins and course, and explores its impact on a personal and international scale. It also provides an ethical reflection on the war in the context of Europe's tumultuous twentieth century, highlighting why it has inspired some of the greatest writers of our time, and how it continues to resonate today in Britain, continental Europe, and beyond. Throughout the book, the focus is on the war as an arena of social change where ideas about culture were forged or resisted, and in which both Spaniards and non-Spaniards participated alike. These were conflicts that during the Second World War would stretch from Franco's regime, which envisaged itself as part of the Nazi new order, to Europe and beyond. Accordingly, this book examines Spanish participation in European resistance movements during World War II and also the ongoing civil war waged politically, economically, judicially and culturally inside Spain by Francoism after its military victory in 1939. History writing itself became a battleground and the book charts the Franco regime's attempt to appropriate the past. It also indicates its ultimate failure - as evident in new writings on the war and, above all, in the return of Republican memory now occurring in Spain during the opening years of the twenty-first century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26626 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Review
Small but impressive (Soldier Magazine )

About the Author
Helen Graham is Professor of Spanish History at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published widely on the Spanish left in the 1930s and is the author of The Spanish Republic at War 1936-1939 (Cambridge University, 2002), a major re-assessment of the left during the civil war. She is currently researching Spanish prisons in the 1940s as part of a social history of early Francoism. She also co-edited (with Jo Labanyi) and contributed to Spanish Cultural
Studies: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 1996).

Customer Reviews

Great overview of the political and social impact, less so for military aspects and causes
Before you buy this book, you need to ask yourself what aspects of the Spanish Civil war are you most curious about. If you are interested in the military history, then this is not the book for you, as little attention is devoted to the military developments of the war. Also, if you are interested in the origins of the war (i.e. what started it) then this book will only provide a general overview of the antecedents rather than a complex examination of them. However, if you have a general curiosity about the Civil War, especially the social and political aspects of it whilst it was going on, then this is a superb book.

The author has done three things particularly well. Firstly, the author been able to explain the political motivations of the outside powers Italy and Germany, whose involvement had more to do with cynical financial gains than it did with any ideological commonality with Franco. Secondly, the book beautifully examines and explains the strategies and motivations for the faction leaders. I found this to be amongst the most interesting aspects, and it was very informative to learn why Mussolini, Hitler, Franco and Negrin were involved in the war, and what strategies they had in place to get the best favourable outcome for their side. Finally, the author also elegantly weaves the international frictions of the time into the conflict into the story.

Another interesting and enjoyable part of the book is its examination of what happened to the losing side. We discover that many fighters fled to France and became active in the French resistance, some even making it via the leftist underground to the USSR. Indeed, many of these men would one day fight the Spanish nationalists for a second time, as they clashed with Spanish Blue Shirt volunteers in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.

The book does have one or two weaknesses. One weakness is the aforementioned scant treatment of the origins of the war and its military developments, although to be fair the author does warn us that these aspects will not be covered in any depth. Perhaps more serious is the slight bias the author has for the Republican side in the conflict. Indeed, her accounts of the Republic border at times on a letter to a fan club, or even a hagiography.

All in all however, the book provides an excellent overview of the Spanish Civil War, and for the price is simply the best introduction there is.

A Short Review
An excellent little book well written and containing little nuggets of information. This would be a super introduction to any new reader to this subject, whilst at the same time providing enough material to interest the "veterans" of the field. All in all an excellent read and highly commende.

More a thesis than a book
The title gave me the impression this might be a layman's guide to the events of leading to Franco coming to power. A sort of Civil War for Dummies. However, I found this book to be full of impenetrable words and convoluted sentences. I kept having to reread parts to try to understand what the author was saying. The language was very academic, there were references to to events which are not common knowledge. The praise on the rear cover from the LSE gives it away. This is an academic work for people with some prior knowledge. One of the other reviewers commented that it was biased towards the Republican side. I found it impossible to tell!