book data
105 ratings, 3.62 average rating, 26 reviews
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published
2006
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
binding
Hardcover, 584 pages
isbn
0297848321
(isbn13: 9780297848325)
description
A fresh and acclaimed account of the Spanish Civil War by the bestselling author of Stalingrad and The Fall Of Berlin 1945
To mark the 70th anniver...more
To mark the 70th anniver...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 219)
Read in November, 2008
Well, seven chapters (80 pages) in, I have to acknowledge that I find Beevor's book pretty much unreadable. It's a combination of poor organization (it's hard to figure out at any given point where he is going with things - he makes detours from a purely chronological account for no apparent reason) and excessive, mind-numbing detail in places. A typical sentence:
Between 5 and 12 March he (Mola) had meetings with other key conspirators: Orgaz, Goded, Ponte, Kindelan, Saliquet, Franco...more
Between 5 and 12 March he (Mola) had meetings with other key conspirators: Orgaz, Goded, Ponte, Kindelan, Saliquet, Franco...more
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Read in June, 2008
Amazon 2008-04-12
I really enjoyed the intimacy and depth of Beevor's Stalingrad: The Siege, and this brought just as much effort to the Ejército Popular Republicanos' struggle against Nicolas Franco's nacionales: the Ejército Nacional, Catholic loyalists, fascist allies from Estado Novo, the Luftwaffe's Legion condor and Italy's Corpo Truppe Volontarie, and the bungling farce that was the League of Nations' "Non-Intervention Committee".
I read this book because...more
I really enjoyed the intimacy and depth of Beevor's Stalingrad: The Siege, and this brought just as much effort to the Ejército Popular Republicanos' struggle against Nicolas Franco's nacionales: the Ejército Nacional, Catholic loyalists, fascist allies from Estado Novo, the Luftwaffe's Legion condor and Italy's Corpo Truppe Volontarie, and the bungling farce that was the League of Nations' "Non-Intervention Committee".
I read this book because...more
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Read in July, 2007
This book is a comprehensive and detailed account on the Spanish civil war. Before reading it, I thought I knew roughly enough about the war and the role of countries like Germany and Italy on one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other. Well, I did not. Not to talk about the role of France and the United Kingdom, which did their best not to interfere and by doing so, ended up to taking sides. At the end the republic had no-one to turn to but the Soviet Union, which did not agree to lend a hand ...more
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Read in November, 2008
I had to abandon this book after about a hundred pages. I'm completely ignorant of Spanish history and I was hoping this would be a good ground-floor overview. Unfortunately it was way over my head. If you've never read anything about the Spanish Civil War, I don't recommend starting here.
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Read in July, 2007
Whilst it retains the usual well written mix of facts and personal experiences for which Beevor is well known I found this volume less easy to follow than other books of his. I think that's mostly due to the complex situation in Spain during the period covered than anything else, but also the style appears less confident than in his more recent works. Essentially he produces a patchwork of descriptions and allows the reader to mostly construct their own narrative framework around that. Both side...more
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Read in August, 2007
Astounding. A great book on a sadly little known topic but one which is a microcosm of the failure of the twentieth century. The intricate politics of the war and the the multitude of factions makes for some slow but necessary reading even with Beevor's excellent narrative talents. What is most tragic is that it paints in excruciating clarity that our world is run by ordinary people who really have no idea what they are doing and are victims of their own prejudices and fears all of which lead...more
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Just got this for Christmas from my Dad. Not exactly an anarchist perspective but I just started it
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
people who want to understand the spainsh civil war
Not done reading this yet but it's a good intro to the madness that engulfed Spain in the mid-1930's. I have to say that some of the background information as to what actually happened at the beginning of the war is a little unclear (this is why I am not giving the book 5 out of 5 stars). Other than that it's very clear, very well written and fascinating. To me, the Spanish Civil war is one of the great tragedies of the modern era, and the West's failure to help the Republican cause (thereby for...more
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Read in October, 2007
I selected this book because the Spanish Civil War is an event in history about which I was relatively ignorant. This book is a pretty good comprehensive history of the conflict, but doesn’t always keep the readers’ attention and is frequently confusing—Beevor could have done a better job of explaining all of the different groups to the reader. I’ll glad I read this book, I now have a pretty good understanding of the Spanish Civil War, but I was looking forward to getting the book done...more
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Read in May, 2008
My first foray into the Spanish Civil War, and the extensive cast of characters and unfamiliar geography of Spain made this a somewhat laborious read for me - a little like a russian novel (where everyone seems to have a dozen different names and you almost have to keep a thesaurus of names to keep track of the characters).
That said, the wanton cruelty and incompetence of leading participants, and their political bankrupsy as described in this book were stunning.
That said, the wanton cruelty and incompetence of leading participants, and their political bankrupsy as described in this book were stunning.
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I found this book informative, but dry. I suppose that it's inevitable with a so much happening everywhere in a civil war (that's part of the horror of it), but I found that this book was too detailed and I could keep track of all the things that were happening simultaneously.
That said, I found the at the discussion of the politics at the time was very interesting, and the background to the civil war, if a bit dispassionate, at least comprehensible.
That said, I found the at the discussion of the politics at the time was very interesting, and the background to the civil war, if a bit dispassionate, at least comprehensible.
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Read in January, 2005
As other reviewers have noted, The Spanish Civil War is not an easy war to write about. So many factions, so many events, all occurring at the same time that any book that attempts to do them justice would be monolithic (such as Hugh Thomas' definitive tome). Beevor struggles against the mountain of detail but still manages to provide a decent retelling of the events, but without the heart that embodied Spain of that time.
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The Spanish civil war is not an easy topic. It was a conflict involving so many sides, and so much contradiction that it is much more complex than your average "good guy vs Bad guy" type of war. Add to this Beevor's obsessive attention to detail, and it makes a very difficult book to read. Not light reading by any means but probably among the best and most objective account of this conflict.
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Concise history of one of the important, but oft-forgotten, conflicts of the last century.
Great moment of historical irony: The Republicans lost the 1933 election which brought the monarchists back into power because the anarchists refused to vote. Way to keep your eye on the ball, guys.
Great moment of historical irony: The Republicans lost the 1933 election which brought the monarchists back into power because the anarchists refused to vote. Way to keep your eye on the ball, guys.
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
Anyone
An excellent book, well-written and covers all the big questions about the war.
In particular Beevor makes good use of material which has recently beccome available from the USSR: the story of Antonov-Ovseenko, the ex-Trotskyist Soviet consul in Barcelona, was particularly interesting to me.
In particular Beevor makes good use of material which has recently beccome available from the USSR: the story of Antonov-Ovseenko, the ex-Trotskyist Soviet consul in Barcelona, was particularly interesting to me.
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone interested in the history of Spain.
While I was aware of the general outlines of the Spanish Civil War, Antony Beevor's latest book filled in much of the detail and is particulalry good on explaining the extemt of Soviet influence on the Spanish Communist Party and thus on the conduct of the Republic during the war.
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Read in September, 2007
This one-volume introduction to the iconic civil war of the 20th century remains a classic read despite the opening up of Soviet and Fascist archives. Its historiography has been superseded and updated by the same author, but man! Talk about war to the knife!
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The best book about the Spanish Civil War. Many interesting facets to this complicated military, social, political and historical event that are unfamiliar to American readers.
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Informative, but uneven. Beevor clearly has a lot of information to share, but his delivery isn't nearly as coherent here as it was in Stalingrad.
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beevor is great, but this reads like a textbook. pick up orwell's Homage To Catalonia for a history of the war that will blow your fucking mind.
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