Wednesday, November 13, 2024

European Reading Challenge #15

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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