Revolution and war in Spain, 1931-1939

by Paul Preston (Contributor)

Revolution and War in Spain 1931-1939 brings together the work of twelve scholars to demonstrate the latest historiography on the Spanish Civil War. This collection of essays highlights how the war took shape differently across the regions. In addition it examines the revolution in economic terms, as well as politically and ideologically. These essays offer students a rich insight into the recent revisionist approaches to the study of the revolution and war in Spain.

Genres: History, Politics

299 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 1984

About the author

Paul Preston, author of Franco and Juan Carlos, holds the Príncipe de Asturias Chair of Contemporary Spanish History at the London School of Economics. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice assortment of essays covering different aspects of the conflict and avoiding the simplistic Democracy vs. Fascism narrative. Carlism, Basque and Catalan nationalism, the geopolitical situation, religious and social conflicts, etc. are all covered. Since one of the very few large-scale experiments in libertarian communism was attempted during the war, you might think at least one chapter would cover the CNT, the FAI, or the Aragón collectives, however. The closest thing is Ronald Fraser's chapter, which focuses more on the communists, however, and hypothesizes a collaboration between the CNT and PCE that assumes communism could have been something other than what it was, and that Stalin could have chosen to alienate the rulers of the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy all at once, just when he was consolidating his own rule.