The Civil War
Paul Preston The Spanish Holocaust
Richard Baxell Unlikely Warriors
Helen Graham The Spanish Civil War: a very short introduction
David Boyd Hancock I am Spain
Chris Farman, Valery Rose & Liz Woolley No Other Way: Oxfordshire & the Spanish Civil War
Henry Buckley The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic
George Orwell Homage to Catalonia
Ronald Fraser Blood of Spain: an oral history of the Spanish Civil War
Women in the Civil War
Paul Preston Doves of War: Four women of Spain
Angela Jackson British Women and the Spanish Civil War
Jim Fyrth & Sally Alexander (Ed.) Women’s Voices from the Spanish Civil War
Judith Keene The Last Mile to Huesca: an Australian nurse in the Spanish Civil War
Nan Green A Chronicle of Small Beer
Gerald Brenan The Face of Spain
Ronald Fraser The Pueblo
Ronald Fraser In Hiding: the life of Manuel Cortes
Juan Eslava Galán Los Años del Miedo
Juan Eslava Galán De la Alpargata al Seiscientos
David Baird Between Two Fires
Legacy of the Civil War
Giles Tremlett Ghosts of Spain
Javier Cercas Soldados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamis)
Dulce Chacón La Voz Dormida
Ángel Fábregas Sulayr dame Cobijo
Almudena Grandes El Corazón Helado (The Frozen Heart)
Alberto Méndez Los Girasoles Ciegos (Blind Sunflowers)
Henry Buckley was the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Spain between 1929 and 1939. Based in Madrid but travelling widely, he witnessed first-hand the years of the Second Republic and the Civil War. His account, The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic, has the immediacy of someone on the spot throughout. Sir Paul Preston is the foremost authority on 20thcentury Spanish history and has written many books on the Spanish Civil War, including a biography of Franco. The Spanish Holocaust is a harrowing account of the war and its aftermath including the extra-judicial murder of around 200,000 men and women by the Franco regime. Doves of War: Four Women of Spain tells the fascinating and often tragic stories of four women involved in the conflict, two on each side. One of them is Nan Green, a communist who followed her husband George to Spain with the International Brigades and worked as a medical administrator. George was killed on the Ebro in 1938. She was an inspiring woman and her memoir, A Chronicle of Small Beer, makes compelling reading. For a concise history of the Civil War, I’d recommend Helen Graham’s The Spanish Civil War: a very short introduction. In I am Spain, historian David Boyd Hancock writes about the Civil War using the first-hand accounts of writers, artists, photographers and fighters from various countries who joined in the struggle against fascism. Unlikely Warriors by Richard Baxell tells the story of the British volunteers, over 500 of whom gave their lives in the struggle. No Other Way, published by the Oxford branch of the International Brigades Memorial Trust, details the 31 volunteers, some quite famous, who had links with Oxford.
Angela Jackson examines the backgrounds, motives and experiences of women in the Civil War. Their involvement, whether as medical or relief workers, administrators, journalists or broadcasters, is also described, mostly in their own words, in the excellent anthology, Women’s Voices from the Spanish Civil War. Historian Judith Keene’s Last Mile to Huescais about Australian nurse Ada Hodgson and includes the diary she kept of her time in Spain.
Ronald Fraser’s oral histories, The Pueblo and In Hiding: The Life of Manuel Cortes give a fascinating picture of life during the long decades of Franco’s rule through the personal testimonies of one village’s inhabitants.
Between Two Fires describes life in the village of Frigiliana during the 1940s and 50s when quite a number of those opposed to the regime (and therefore under threat of imprisonment or worse) had taken to the hills and were conducting a kind of guerilla warfare with the Civil Guard. Local people were often caught in the middle, hence the title. David Baird, long resident in the village, uses many first-hand accounts to tell the story from both sides.
Juan Eslava Galán’s two books offer an ironic take on life during the dictatorship through stories peopled by fictional characters.
Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett, formerly the Guardian’s correspondent, has lived in Madrid for many years and writes extremely well about contemporary Spain. The first part of the book, in particular, is about the legacy of the war.