The Splintering of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

by Chris Ealham (Editor)

This 2005 book explores the ideas and culture surrounding the cataclysmic civil war that engulfed Spain from 1936 to 1939. It features specially commissioned articles from leading historians in Spain, Britain and the US which examine the complex interaction of national and local factors, contributing to the shape and course of the war. They argue that the 'splintering of Spain' resulted from the myriad cultural cleavages of society in the 1930s that are investigated here at both local and national levels. Thus, this book tends to see the civil war less as a single great conflict between two easily identifiable sets of ideas, social classes or ways of life than historians have previously done. The Spanish tragedy, at the level of everyday life, was shaped by many tensions, both those that were formally political and those that were to do with people's perceptions and understanding of the society around them.

Genres: Spain, History

310 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2005

About the author

Chris Ealham currently lives and works in Madrid, where he teaches History at Saint Louis University. Previously, he taught at the Universities of London, Lancaster, and Cardiff.

He is a specialist in Spanish labor history and movements, especially those of anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist inspiration. His work, which has been translated into Castilian, Catalan and Italian, includes Anarchism and the City: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Barcelona, 1898-1937 (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2010), and (co-edited with Mike Richards), The Splintering of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). He also writes in the Spanish anarchist and daily press on topics ranging from soccer to urban planning.