The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

For those who wish to learn the often difficult vocabulary of the Civil War, this is an excellent introduction. Who were the Republicans, the Loyalists, Falangists, the International Brigade? What were the names and goals of the various contentious union and anarchist organizations who often fought amongst themseleves? How did Franco, an obscure officer from North Africa with a limited army, manage to ally himself with Hitler and Mussolini, the Church and the landed aristocracy and eventually defeat a genuine populist movement, one that started with the best of intentions but soon imploded on itself? A crucial moment in world history, difficult to understand in its complexity. If you wish to gather a better understanding of how and why, this is a book to read before or after Koestler and Orwell.

This is an absolutely terrific little book. It does what an introduction should do: stimulate the reader to go further. The complaints in some of the other reviews are perplexing. The author writes with both clarity and fluidity. The reader is never lost in the discussion. The interpretive framework has its slant, but why not? Some of the reviews call for a 'more balanced account.' But how can one be 'balanced' in a world of such evident tension and conflict except through resort to universalities, often of the most banal sort, that, in more concrete socio-historical contexts, fall short? Given that realization, how can one escape taking a position? And once taken, the author has clearly thought it through and its implications, weaving a very effective and convincing narrative. Not least, and crucially, through her critical approach she is able to show how the war in Spain was part of a Europe-wide civil war, the culmination of which would be World War Two. The book makes new connections and perhaps that is what has irritated some of the reviewers who would have preferred to see the standard stories dished out. Bravo for a tale well told.

Excellent writing that enabled the author to condense the background and happenings in the Spanish Civil War. More than just the basics, it manages to get somewhat in depth in spite of the limited number of pages and small size. Just good writing.

OUP's "A Very Short Introduction" series is a usually fun, even great, set of books despite being of an admittedly inconsistent quality. With this volume, though, I was appalled in a way I couldn't imagine being with any of the others which I felt to have fallen short.Dr Graham is a Oxford DPhil whose interest in the Spanish Civil War seems to center on Progressive cultural and gender issues of the time, framed in another of her books as the Republic's "struggle for modernity". There's no such thing as an unbiased work, especially in the realm of contemporary social and cultural issues, but writing an even keeled survey of a topic as broad as the Spanish Civil War shouldn't be an arduous task for a professionally trained historian fluent in the subject. When a competent historian is commissioned to cram such a hearty subject into about a 150 non-scholarly pages the book should nearly write itself. Graham, instead of writing a survey history of the topic, uses the opportunity to translate her sympathies with the Popular Front and "contextualizing" of Republican atrocities, into a full blown polemic. As a matter of fact, with all the ideological sermonizing, Republican apologia and demonizing of the crudely caricatured Nationalist peasant and working class, I'm not surprised Graham was unable to fit in all the material she should have covered into such a constrained space. This book treats us to a lecture on the Spanish Civil War as a cultural and economic class struggle against a repressive landed elite, a parasitically neo-Imperialist Spanish officer corps and the always gleefully deconstructed religious rubes in the countryside, tricked by a corrupt clergy into acting against "their own best interests". By the end you can practically hear her gnashing teeth and cries of dismay as the Republic falls apart and Franco's forces close in on victory. I suppose I could say that if this book had been a pamphlet or essay on the Civil War from a socialist or even broadly leftist perspective I would have been able to give such naked bias a pass.Other reviewers have devoted some substantial space to Graham's poor prose. While it's not good, and sometimes even ugly, it's not so uniformly bad as to be unreadable or even significantly distracting. She does indulge in neologism that has no place in a book like this but it never devolves to Bhabha-esque pseudo-intellectual babble. On the other hand, also mentioned by other reviewers, her dismissive use of scare quotes when discussing the grievances of various groups supportive of the Nationalist alliance is irritating in the extreme. Such pretentiously blithe dismissal can't be attributed to brevity, especially in light of the space devoted to the struggles of more peripheral figures in the Republican movement. As pointed out by another reviewer Graham nearly ignores the entire Carlist faction and yet spills significant ink over members of the Republican forces for no other reason than Graham finds them to be individually interesting sociological studies in sexuality and gender. Such prioritization in a historical survey of the Civil War is bizarre, in the extreme.All of that disappointment out of the way I will say that Graham manages to collapse some excruciatingly complex topics in more manageable conceptualizations. The logic used to reach these more edible conclusions require some fairly robust defense and take some liberty with very contested subjects. Her treatment of the CNT is intellectually aggressive and worthy of serious debate but impossible to really encapsulate in a book like this. The socialist and more radically Progressive reader will find some of this possibly inspiring but having not read Graham's other books in their entirety I'm not sure I could recommend this volume to them instead.All of the material I've consumed on the Spanish Civil War consists of ponderous books and online essays so I'm unable to recommend another "introductory" book in this one's stead. I might have to resign myself to the possibility that there simply isn't one and the only opportunity so far to write one has been lost to the puzzling decision to hand over the volume in AVSI's collection to Graham. It's my genuine hope that in a decade or so OUP will give us an unstated mea culpa on the topic with a new effort by a different author.

It is a very succinct introduction and summary of the Spanish Civil War, a subject that I have been only vaguely familiar with. After reading this book, I now realize how brutal and important that war was. It has been totally overshadowed by World War 2, although there are some historians who feel that the Spanish Civil War should be considered a part of that war, After reading this book, I would tend to agree with that judgement.In addition to the educational value of this book, it was also a quick and exciting read. It was hard to put down. I now plan to read more about that war and view some of the several films that revolve around it.I recommend this book to anyone interested in history.

I like the Oxford very short introduction collection. This book is no exception. Very informative for someone who is fresh to the topic of the Spanish civil war.

Despite short, a great deal of information is presented in a very readable manner

This is a fascinating, extremely well written and nuanced explanation of the Spanish Civil War. It is particularly interesting for those of us who see a parallel between Republican Spain seeking help against the Fascists in the 1930s and the Ukrainians who could see off Russia if they get enough international help. President Zelensky of Ukraine is something of a latter-day Juan Negrin, the brilliant doctor-turned-Spanish Prime Minister who sought the help of the US, France and Britain (to little avail) between 1936 and 1939. Spain was a cauldron of competing interest groups in the early 1930s — with the Catholic Church, the fascist Falange and the new Republican government fighting for power. Enter the army, with decades of brutal experience in North Africa, with Franco rising to lead it, and the southern poor, the left and those (teachers, poets, thinkers...) who pose an intellectual threat are running for their lives. Even now, you have to be very careful about mentioning any of this in Spain. I have just been in Malaga where the Museum of Malaga (a marvellous place) concentrates its history resources further back and leaves it to the fine art section to discuss Pablo Picasso's decision to leave his Malaga birthplace and home for France. (He was greatly missed and, I think, much of his style comes from that time in his life when messages had to be coded.)

The author sets her objectives as firstly, to describe the 'causes, course and consequences' of the War. It is not a military history, so fair enough. Her second objective is to, 'examine the historical debates and political polemics' and here we start to hit the buffers.The aim of the 'very short introduction(VSI)' series is presumably to allow a non-expert reader the opportunity to access a new subject quickly and comprehensibly. This VSI does not fulfil those objectives. The fault lies in the author's style rather than content. It is often jargon-filled and obtuse eg. 'The democratic ethos underpinning the Republican polity...', or '....intensify the internal disarticulation...' or '...the communist movement was atypically heterogeneous..' and there are many more. If these examples illustrate that this is not the easiest VSI to 'comprehend' then the other failing is the length of the book; it does not feel 'short' at all.Despite these shortcomings, it did stimulate further reading and has an excellent bibliography and weblinks page.

It would be a monumental challenge to describe the causes and complex course of this protracted conflict in a short survey. The author succeeded in providing an illuminating succinct narrative and a cogent analysis of the socio political and cultural origins of the conflict in just over 150 pages, missing very little. After reading Paul Preston work, I found this particular text an immensely useful sum up that retains one’s full attention, explaining the salient factors by avoiding getting bogged down with a plethora of details. I would strongly recommend it either as an initial introduction or after reading the more extensive accounts in order to gather one’s thoughts in a clear orderly manner.

With a keen interest and understanding of the Second World War, I realised that I knew next to nothing about this major 'rehearsal' conflict that had a huge and long-lasting impact on future conflicts and the ensuing peace. With my son studying Spanish at University, I purchased this wee book to try to improve my knowledge and I have been most impressed. To quote that most irritating of slogans, it does exactly what it says on the tin. I'll certainly be looking to purchase more in this series. Excellent.

A useful introduction to the Spanish Civil War. Particularly helpful is the geopolitical positioning of the Civil War and how pragmatic European powers responded and why in the lead-up to a looming Second World War. Less evident is a detailed military history, while the last quarter of the book is concerned with events, history and impact following the war. I was disappointed to see the importance of the divisions within the political left, as described at length by George Orwell, dismissed somewhat (the author challenges Orwell’s account). Nonetheless, this volume offers a broad brush stroke approach helpful for those with little or no no prior knowledge and seeking to get into the subject. Because of the broad nature of the book’s narrative thee is little detailed discussion of the substantial suffering endured by many Spaniards—on both sides—as a result of the war. For more on this aspect, consider Paul Preston’s work, who provides a more grassroots or local narrative, which provides readers with a greater sense of the massive human suffering the war inflicted.