Books by Paul Preston

Long neglected by European historians, the unspeakable atrocities of Franco s Spain are finally brought to tragic light in this definitive work."

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 "e;the Spanish Holocaust"e;: 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.

The war in Spain and those who wrote at first hand of its horrors.From 1936 to 1939 the eyes of the world were fixed on the devastating Spanish conflict that drew both professional war correspondents and great writers. Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Josephine Herbst, Martha Gellhorn, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Kim Philby, George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Cyril Connolly, Andr Malraux, Antoine de Saint Exup ry and others wrote eloquently about the horrors they saw at first hand.Together with many great and now largely forgotten journalists, they put their lives on the line, discarding professionally dispassionate approaches and keenly espousing the cause of the partisans. Facing censorship, they fought to expose the complacency with which the decision-makers of the West were appeasing Hitler and Mussolini. Many campaigned for the lifting of non-intervention, revealing the extent to which the Spanish Republic had been betrayed. Peter Preston's exhilarating account illuminates the moment when war correspondence came of age.

A rousing and full-blooded account of the Spanish Civil War and the rise to prominence of General Franco.No modern conflict has inflamed the passions of both civilians and intellectuals as much as the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. Burned into our collective historical consciousness, it not only prefigured the imminent Second World War but also ushered in a new and horrific form of warfare that would come to define the twentieth century. At the same time it echoed the revolutionary aspirations of millions of Europeans and Americans after the painful years of the Great Depression.In this authoritative history, Paul Preston vividly recounts the political ideals and military horrors of the Spanish Civil War - including the controversial bombing of Guernica - and tracks the emergence of General Franco's brutal but extraordinarily durable fascist dictatorship.

Focusing particularly on how the Spanish Right seized power, this is an examination of the course of the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship that followed. Other work by the author includes "The Coming of the Spanish Civil War" and "The Triumph of Democracy in Spain".

This classic text is made newly available in a substantially revised and updated second edition.

'This book is essential reading for whoever wants to understand Spain today and its protagonists, both individual and collective. In the best British tradition, recent politics here becomes history.' - TLS

'Magisterial ... As engagingly readable as a good novel' Observer The definitive biography of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, from the acclaimed historian Paul Preston.