I read this for the 2024 European Reading Challenge.
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 -
Antony Beevor
The Spanish Civil War was a world war between the two better-known world wars.
The Republicans were supported by peasants, workers, anarchists, brigades
of international socialists (democratic and not), and the Soviet Union. The
Nationalists were the military, the Church, landowners, big business,
monarchists, and they were supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Beevor narrates the social and military history clearly, given obstacles. Barriers
to comprehension are the large number of Spanish personal and place names;
the numerous political parties, their acronyms, and their stances and
supporters; and the emotions that churn as the reader works through shock,
bitterness, disgust, horror, and passion that reading about this bitter
conflict will provoke.
In the late 1980s, the Spanish-language version of this book won the Prize for
Non-Fiction awarded by the newspaper La Vanguardia. Readers with a
serious interest in the topic will find this history fascinating.
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