The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge

by Paul Preston

Overview

The definitive work on the Spanish Civil War, a classic of modern historical scholarship and a masterful narrative.

Paul Preston is the world's foremost historian of Spain. This surging history recounts the struggles of the 1936 war in which more than 3,000 Americans took up arms. Tracking the emergence of Francisco Franco's brutal (and, ultimately, extraordinarily durable) fascist dictatorship, Preston assesses the ways in which the Spanish Civil War presaged the Second World War that ensued so rapidly after it.

The attempted social revolution in Spain awakened progressive hopes during the Depression, but the conflict quickly escalated into a new and horrific form of warfare. As Preston shows, the unprecedented levels of brutality were burned into the American consciousness as never before by the revolutionary war reporting of Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Herbert Matthews, Vincent Sheean, Louis Fischer, and many others. Completely revised, including previously unseen material on Franco's treatment of women in wartime prisons, The Spanish Civil War is a classic work on this pivotal epoch in the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393329872
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/17/2007
Edition description:	Revised and Expanded Edition
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	395,248
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Paul Preston, author of The Spanish Civil War, Franco, Juan Carlos, and The Spanish Holocaust, is the world’s foremost historian on twentieth-century Spain. A professor at the London School of Economics, he lives in London.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements     ix
List of Plates     xi
Map of Spain     xiv
Preface     xvii
Introduction: The Civil War Seventy Years On     1
A Divided Society: Spain Before 1931     17
The Leftist Challenge, 1931-1933     38
Confrontation and Conspiracy, 1934-1936     66
'The Map of Spain Bleeds': From Coup d'Etat to Civil War     102
'Behind the Gentleman's Agreement': The Great Powers Betray Spain     135
'Madrid is the Heart': The Central Epic     163
Politics Behind the Lines: Reaction and Terror in the City of God     199
Politics Behind the Lines: Revolution and Terror in the City of the Devil     229
Defeat by Instalments     266
Franco's Peace     301
Epilogue     319
Principal Characters     327
Glossary     329
List of Abbreviations     331
Biographical Essay     333
Index     359

Editorial Reviews

Preston's treatise was praised by critics when it debuted in 1986. This edition has been revised and expanded with new info, including details on Franco's treatment of imprisoned women. One of the best books on the subject is now even better.

—Michael Rogers

Library Journal