SIR PAUL PRESTON CBE is Professor of Contemporary Spanish History at the London School of Economics and was previously a lecturer at the University of Reading and Professor of Modern History at Queen Mary University London. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and holds the Marcel Proust Chair of the European Academy of Yuste. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by universities in Spain and the UK. In 2006, he was awarded the International Ramon Llull Prize by the Catalan Government and, in 2018, the Guernica Peace Prize. Among his many works are Franco: A Biography, Comrades, Doves of War: Four Women of Spain, Juan Carlos, The Spanish Civil War, The Spanish Holocaust, The Last Stalinist, The Last Days of the Spanish Republic and A People Betrayed. In Spain, he was appointed a Comendador de la Orden del Mérito Civil in 1986 and awarded, in 2007, the Gran Cruz de la Orden de Isabel la Católica. He lives in London.
‘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 murder of 200,000 Spaniards and the deaths of countless more from disease, slave labor, and the ravages of concentration camps was a deliberate plan by Franco's troops to eliminate their opponents, says Preston, a leading scholar of 20th-century Spanish history at the London School of Economics. Preston (The Spanish Civil War) provides more than enough illumination of this lesser-known holocaust in this thick, intensely detailed, indignant account. Spain entered the 20th century impoverished and largely rural. Industrialization and the rise of militant unions after WWI provoked conflicts that worsened after the passing of a reformist 1931 constitution, which outraged landowners, army officers, and the Catholic Church. They supported the rising Falangist movement, which denounced the government in familiar fascist rhetoric. The 1936 rebellion was led by Gen. Francisco Franco, who, after taking power, "perfect[ed]... the machinery of state terror" in order to maintain power. Although Preston describes many Republican atrocities, a relentless stream of gruesome trials, executions, and massacres presses his case that the Right committed the lion's share. Many conservatives, finding much to admire in Franco, have accused Preston of bias, and this latest work is unlikely to silence them. Illus. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Some may question use of the term holocaust in reference to the Spanish Civil War, but Preston makes the case for its applicability by detailing horrors that have been largely ignored and repressed until quite recently. Preston (international history, London Sch. of Economcs; We Saw Spain Die) successfully shows the parallels between Nazi Germany's mantra of Jewish duplicity and methods of torture and General Franco's actions. Seeing the repressed workers as subhuman and with support from the clergy and landowners, Franco launched a sickening campaign of annihilation regardless of guilt or innocence, waging war against the existing Democratic and reformist government. Preston does not ignore the Republic's own deadly reactions, but he does show that the Republic largely tried to maintain a level of democracy and not wage a "total war." Verdict Delineating the atrocities in both words and with maps and meticulously detailing the various forms of torture and slaughter, this work is for a scholarly audience. Academic collections should purchase this definitive and exhaustive study as it offers, in one volume, a needed perspective on the era.-Maria Bagshaw, Elgin Community Coll. Lib., IL (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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