What are we reading? 11/03/2024

[Robert]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i have attached a photo of the Francoist entry into Madrid and it looks like happy crowds."

FWIW - and I claim zero expertise in this - it seems to me that a majority in Madrid did in..."

I've heard that there is an old rivalry between the two cities. After all, Barcelona probably goes back to Caesar's time, making Madrid a mere upstart.

[Gpfr]

Re the Spanish civil war, last month I read and mentioned here and on WWR, Death's Other Kingdom by Gamel Woolsey (Gerald Brenan's wife). The couple remained in Spain for the first months of the war.
Alwynne first drew our attention to this book at the end of 2020.
I'd previously read Brenan's South from Granada about life in Spain a few years before the war.

[Gpfr]

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: " just been putting up a moth house for my mother ..."

Moth house? 😱 ... Butterflies no problem. but moths!!!"

I think we've shared our feelings on this subject before — with you all the way as far as moths are concerned!

[Gpfr]

I'll be closing this thread at the end of the afternoon, in about 12 hours from now.

[Robert]

Okay.

[scarletnoir]

I'll quickly post this, as I have a link - but will re-post in the new thread.

I'm currently reading Darktown by Thomas Mullen, which deals with the first black police officers in Atlanta. More on that, and the overt racism they faced, later.

Here, I just wanted to mention three things I have learnt so far, which relate to what seems like odd laws and/or use of language.

First - I was astonished to come across the phrase 'premature anti-Fascism'... what can this possibly mean? I wondered. It seems as if it was FBI code for those who fought against Franco for the communist or anarchist brigades. Equally bemused was one Bernard Knox - a Cambridge graduate who did just that, then emigrated to the USA and later fought for the OSS during WW2. I came across his fascinating article while researching the phrase:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-x...

Another dubious use of language appeared in the book, relating to (apparently) the crime of a black man making eye-contact with a white woman... I have forgotten the exact term, but it was something like 'conspicuous staring'. Now, I know and understand that women don't like to be stared at by men, but it seemed as if this could be interpreted as the merest accidental crossing of glances in a fleeting moment - if the 'offended party' chose to make something of it.

A final piece of history - maybe - was the implication that lynchings (of blacks) were 'legal'. I'm a bit doubtful about that, but it is clear that many such extra-judicial killings were never investigated or prosecuted. If such murders were indeed 'legal', that makes it even worse.

[Bill]

scarletnoir wrote: "Another dubious use of language appeared in the book, relating to (apparently) the crime of a black man making eye-contact with a white woman... I have forgotten the exact term, but it was something like 'conspicuous staring'. Now, I know and understand that women don't like to be stared at by men, but it seemed as if this could be interpreted as the merest accidental crossing of glances in a fleeting moment - if the 'offended party' chose to make something of it."

There is, in fact, a novel whose title makes use of a similar phrase: Reckless Eyeballing.

[AB76]

I decided to have a brief look at the comments of Hugh Thomas, the great authority on the spanish civil war, on the events of March 1939, which the Preston book is focused on

In that month, army colonel Segismundo Casado led a coup to unseat the Socialist Prime Minister of Spain, Juan Negrin, motivated by fears that he was in the pocket of the communists and because they wanted to end the war., while they believed the communists would prolong it.. Preston alleges Franco's agents played a role in the coup as well, which is plausible. Casado had the anarchist leaders on side as well, with some Socialists

Thomas in his pithy and elegant manner suggests that the coup would probably have occurred unfulfilled if the Anarchists had not supported it. When i finish Prestons account i will then read in full the opinions of Thomas.

Its interesting to look at the Jan-May 1939 period, a world war was getting closer, Italian troops nd German planes participatred in the parades through Madrid(in May) and Barcelona)in January) as part of the victorious Fascist forces. The seeds of future terror were being sown.

Saddest of all was that many of the coup plotters believed Franco might be lenient when they surrendered, which of course, was 100% not the case. Casado escaped but many military officers were tried and imprisoned, though the people who suffered most were without pips on their shoulders or connections, into the Fascist camps they were led, while civilians and soldiers alike starved in internment camps in France, which within a year or so, was occupied by the Nazi's and the terror returned