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Buy it A fresh and acclaimed account of the Spanish Civil War by the bestselling author of Stalingrad and The Fall Of Berlin 1945
To mark the 70th anniversary of the Spanish Civil Wars outbreak, Antony Beevor has written a completely updated and revised account of one of the most bitter and hard-fought wars of the twentieth century. With new material gleaned from the Russian archives and numerous other sources, this brisk and accessible book (Spains #1 bestseller for twelve weeks), provides a balanced and penetrating perspective, explaining the tensions that led to this terrible overture to World War II and affording new insights into the warits causes, course, and consequences.
| Publisher | Penguin (Non-Classics) |
| ISBN | 014303765X |
| Features |
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| Format | Paperback |
| Author | Antony Beevor |
| EAN | 9780143037651 |
| Label | Penguin (Non-Classics) |
| Edition | Reprint. |
| Dewey Decimal Number | 946.081 |
| Studio | Penguin (Non-Classics) |
| Number Of Pages | 560 |
| Title | The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 |
| Publication Date | 2006-06-01 |
| Manufacturer | Penguin (Non-Classics) |
Review by Sirin, 2010-08-20
This is a fine history of the bloody and brutal Spanish Civil War. Beevor is no misty eyed romantic and squares up to the hypocricies, tattered ideals and political manoueverings of both right and left. In typical detail, especially that of military movements (supported by comprehensive maps), Beevor explains how Spain became a country completely ripped apart by the war, with the left especially caught up in vitriolic infighting that almost led to a civil war within the Republican side.
Misty eyed romantics, like those intellectuals and young travellers who went over to Spain to fight, will have their illusions that a Republican victory may have spared Europe the later horrors shattered. SPain was inexorably caught up in the big totalitarian movements of Fascism and Communism across Europe at that time. Torture and suspicion were rife on both sides. This was a hot and nasty conflict resulting from a society where internal religious, class and political tensions could not be contained.
Beevor blackly documents these years drawing on detailed archive research. He is damning of those 'war tourists' such as Hemmingway who barrelled up to the front line every now and then to fire off a few rounds before retreating back to the bars to write it up.
Review by B. Cocke, 2010-08-16
This book is a shortcut. Most people, scholars and amateur historians, believe that The Spanish Civil War: Revised Edition (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Hugh Thomas is the definitive history of the Spanish Civil War, so reading a shorter book (by more than half, in this case) is a bit of a shortcut.
The book has some strong points, but I'll leave those to the other reviewers.
"One observer in Barcelona commented on the attitude towards buildings. He wrote that the people were inclined to destroy symbols, but that they respected in a naive...." p.108 I won't continue because it simply isn't worth it. First, "one observer" is only marginally ok, but what is not ok, is that no evidence backs it up what so ever. There is no end note, no quotation, no point where someone could trace this information back to its source, (although, I suppose one could read every source in the bibliography). I attend a mediocre liberal arts college, and if I, in my introductory History class, turned in a similar piece of writing my professor would rightly circle it and just put "Who?" next to it. It is a general maxim of mine not to buy serious books that couldn't withstand the lowly standards I have been held to.
There are more historical problems, but I don't think many with an Amazon account are looking for a methodological critique.
This book is not a joy to read. I like to read with a pen and annotate a text pretty thoroughly. I got so tired of reading this; I couldn't stand writing in the book anymore. I would furiously curse the author in the margins. He writes in a British voice that is rather round-about for me, and slowed my reading. The only other criticism of his style is that he or his editor didn't, whether through another (non-American) convention or as a matter of choice, didn't indent long quotations. I never valued this, but it was sorrowfully missing in this book. It was odd not having slightly more room to highlight the few primary sources in the book.
I ended up finishing the book as a matter of personal pride. I typically read one book at a time, but the pace and my fury allowed me to finish 3 others before finally finishing this one.
If you get a joy out of learning don't read this book. I suppose if you only read one book on Spain on the airplane to Spain you could do worse- however I've never read worse.
Review by Heights Guy, 2010-07-29
Simply put this is the best written history book I have ever read. Knowing only "For Whom the Bell Tolls" when I started, by the end I felt like I had attended a graduate seminar on the subject. Beevor asks hard questions of all involved, never sympathizing with any side, but always showing sympathy for all who suffered. The explanations of the different parties is clear, the action gripping and the analysis is thought provoking. Buy it.
Review by WryGuy2, 2010-06-08
In "The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939", respected British historian Anthony Beevor gives an even-handed description of the turmoil, political machinations, and tragedy that was the Spanish Civil War. He begins with several chapters setting the stage and introducing the many characters and political parties, giving their motives, fears, and aspirations. He then gives a chronological narrative of the war, mainly from a political perspective, and the war's aftermath.
The Spanish Civil War was a complex war, even for a civil war, and each of the two sides ... Nationalist and Republican ... were in reality made up of many smaller parties. The groups comprising the Nationalists were better able to find common ground, while the Republican side, due to the major schisms between the Anarchists and Communists, was almost doomed to failure from the beginning, although that wasn't immediately obvious. Add in the foreign intervention (or lack of it) and the motivations of other countries to support or not support the war, and this is a conflict that is not easy to explain or analyze.
I was surprised at how bloody and vicious the war was, and how many atrocities were committed by both sides. Unlike, say, the American Civil War, where most of the blood was shed on the battlefield, in the Spanish Civil War, summary executions and cold blooded murders before, during, and after the battles was responsible for a significant percentage of the deaths during (and after) the conflict, more often committed by the Nationalists, but also in great numbers by the Republicans.
Mr Beevor does not have an ax to grind, and presents as fair and balanced a view as is possible, sparing neither side. But at the risk of reviewing the book I wanted to read versus the book that was written, I would have liked to have seen a deeper analysis of the military battles and technical innovations and a little less emphasis on the political aspects. The book is dry at times, and reads longer than its 560 pages (in the paperback version), although this is perhaps forgivable given the complexity of the war. However, it's not as easy or intriguing a read as some of his other fine works that I own.
I recommend this book, although it's probably not the best book for an introduction to the Spanish Civil War to a novice. But it is probably the best book on the market that explains it's political aspects.
Review by The Czar of Arkansas, 2010-01-18
The Battle for Spain is a thorough review of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict about which I knew the basics but wanted to know more. Beevor's work is thorough, and will improve most readers' knowledge of the conflict, but its workmanlike prose style rapidly dissolves into a "this happened then that happened" history. I thought that the period probably could have produced a more interesting account than that presented by Beevor.
I also found that the maps were insufficient. Clearly, Beevor knows Spain better than I; regions of Spain are referred to constantly, but no map of the regions of Spain is included. So, if you're not sure where Estremadura is, don't expect any help from Beevor or his maps. Also, battles which constituted entire chapters of the book lacked maps, so the reader is left to guess where the action happened unless they know Spain's geography relatively well.
The description of the political scene at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War was also difficult to follow. While Spanish politics in 1936 were clearly chaotic, Beevor doesn't do a good job of making sense of the players. Large numbers of names we don't see again and Spanish acronymns abound.
Finally, personalities come in second place in a big way in The Battle for Spain. People who might be fascinating, such as Franco, Azana, Negrin, Companys, and La Pasionaria, are treated as one-dimensional. The reader is left with little insight into their points of view and Beevor rarely lets us know much about what happens to the key players after the war. Beevor sometimes relates the circumstances of their deaths, but generally only if they were executed by Franco.
All in all, The Battle for Spain is an adequate, if boring history of the 20th century's first proxy war.
The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge (Revised and Expanded Edition)
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The Spanish Civil War: Revised Edition (Modern Library Paperbacks)
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