Overview

Selected as the Sunday Times History Book of the Year for 2012, this is a meticulous work of scholarship from the foremost historian of 20th-century Spain. The culmination of more than a decade of research, ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ seeks to reflect the intense horrors visited upon Spain during its ferocious civil war, the consequences of which still reverberate bitterly today. The brutal, murderous persecution of Spaniards between 1936 and 1945 is a truth that should have been told long ago. Paul Preston here offers the first comprehensive picture of what he terms “the Spanish Holocaust”: mass extra-judicial murder of some 200,000 victims, cursory military trials, torture, the systematic abuse of women and children, sweeping imprisonment, the horrors of exile. Those culpable for crimes committed on both sides of the Civil War are named; their victims identified. ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ illuminates one of the darkest, least-known eras of modern European history.

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9780006386957

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Reviews

‘A book of extraordinary moral and emotional power, a classic of historical scholarship and a deeply affecting record of man’s inhumanity to man.’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'A harrowing and moving account of the immense terror and enormous atrocities, especially perpetrated by General Franco's followers, during and after the Spanish Civil War, meticulously researched and superbly written by an outstanding historian.' Ian Kershaw ‘Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Spain and its recent history…. Preston’s excellent, spine-chilling narrative explains just how deep Franco’s early investment in terror was….this is an invaluable book that does not shrink from even the harshest of truths’ Guardian ‘Preston’s staggeringly detailed powerful and affecting chronicle of the savagery unleashed during the Spanish civil war….is a history of rare moral and emotional power, which alters forever our view of one of the most symbolic conflicts of the last century’ Sunday Times, History Book of the Year

'A book of extraordinary moral and emotional power, a classic of historical scholarship and a deeply affecting record of man's inhumanity to man.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'A harrowing and moving account of the immense terror and enormous atrocities, especially perpetrated by General Franco's followers, during and after the Spanish Civil War, meticulously researched and superbly written by an outstanding historian.' Ian Kershaw 'Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Spain and its recent history... Preston's excellent, spine-chilling narrative explains just how deep Franco's early investment in terror was...this is an invaluable book that does not shrink from even the harshest of truths' Guardian 'Preston's staggeringly detailed powerful and affecting chronicle of the savagery unleashed during the Spanish civil war...is a history of rare moral and emotional power, which alters forever our view of one of the most symbolic conflicts of the last century' Sunday Times, History Book of the Year

'The Spanish civil war is, of course, one of the best-chronicled events in modern European history. But Preston goes well beyond previous historians in his magisterial but chillingly meticulous record of slaughter systematically tearing down the self-serving left-wing and (especially) right-wing myths about the conflict... Exhaustively researched and masterfully written... the result is a book of extraordinary moral and emotional power, a classic of historical scholarship and a deeply affecting record of man's inhumanity to man.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'A harrowing and moving account of the immense terror and enormous atrocities, especially perpetrated by General Franco's followers, during and after the Spanish Civil War, meticulously researched and superbly written by an outstanding historian.' Ian Kershaw essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Spain and its recent history... Preston's excellent, spine-chilling narrative explains just how deep Franco's early investment in terror was...this is an invaluable book that does not shrink from even the harshest of truths Guardian No one can doubt the scholarship that underpins Preston's account of the extra-judicial murders executions and torture that General Franco and his forces carried out...a formidable book by Britain's pre-eminent historian of Spain Financial Times

Author Information

Paul Preston is Príncipe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History and Director of the Cañada Blanch Centre of Contemporary Spanish Studies at the LSE. He was lecturer at the University of Reading then successively lecturer in, reader in and Professor of History at Queen Mary College, University of London. In 2006 he was awarded the International Ramon Llull Prize by the Catalan Government. Among his many works are The Triumph of Democracy in Spain (1986), Franco: A Biography (1993), A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War (1996), Comrades (1999), Doves of War: Four Women in Spain (2002), Juan Carlos (2004) and The Spanish Civil War (2006). He was decorated by Spanish King Juan Carlos a ‘Comendador de la Orden de Mérito Civil’ and in 2007, the ‘Gran Cruz de la Orden de Isabel la Católica’. In 2000 he was awarded a CBE.

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