Book description
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. '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 Paul Preston CBE is Príncipe de Asturias Professor of
Contemporary Spanish History and Director of the Cañada Blanch Centre of
Contemporary Spanish Studies at LSE. He was lecturer at the University
of Reading and Professor of History at Queen Mary University. 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'.
