What is this book doing on dooyoo? (Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 - Antony Beevor)

Member Name: Mrs-LT

Product:	Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 - Antony Beevor
Date:	24/02/09 (79 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Academic text

Disadvantages: I just can't see it having broad appeal - it is too dry

This book is a revised edition, which was previously published in 1982. The new edition was published in 2006 by Wiedenfeld & Nicolson (London) and it is this edition that I own and am reviewing here.

This is a difficult review to write as it is an academic text above all, which in my opinion it remains despite efforts to give it broader appeal. Having read the previous review on this book, I have to say I am very surprised to hear of this being sold in supermarkets and high street stores, purely because I cannot see it having a broad appeal. It is a complex text more fit for acaedmia in my opinion, as it requires a certain level of background knowledge. If you are interested in the Spanish Civil War, the best place to start would be Helen Graham's A Very Short Introduction To The Spanish Civil War which is very respected, deals with very complex issues yet is a manageable length and fairly easy to grasp. I certainly would not be starting with Beevor's text.

As an academic text, this one is pretty respected and it appears on many university reading lists. The difference between this and most more recently written texts on the Spanish Civil War is that Beevor is of more right wing political persuasions than the (arguably) more eminent Paul Preston who truly is the master of this area of study. Beevor's work is aligned more closely with that of Stanley G. Payne who is another major voice on the subject. Throughout this book you can sense this, as he appears more sympathetic to the Nationalist side and quicker to deride the involvement of the USSR. He overemphasises the internal conflicts in the Republican camp, and seems to largely bypass the very good argument that much of this was a product of the international Non-Intervention and its physical and psychological impact on the Republican camp. He tries to argue that the Red Terror and the White Terror were largely equal, yet this is an argument that is dubious to say the least. He presents a story in this book of how the Reds did X so the Whites did Y when ultimately, the butchery, terror and repression in the Nationalist camp and in Franco's Spain after the war is divorced from anything that occured on the Red side.

To someone without a historic background though, I can see that while this book would be dry in many places it would also be gripping in others - the raping of women encouraged by Franco and Quiepo de Llano is sure to grab interest and repulsion in equal measure for example.

I just cannot say I would recommend this book as 'a good read'. It is too heavy to be bedtime reading in my honest opinion, and I don't think this is the right place to construct a critical analysis of it as an academic text. In all honesty I am stunned to find it on dooyoo - I just cannot see why it would have broad general appeal.

I have rated it 3*. I don't think it has broad appeal, nor is it a particularly brilliant academic text on the Spanish Civil War. For that, you need to read anything by Paul Preston, preferably after taking a whistlestop tour of the Very Short Introduction book mentioned earlier in this review.

Summary: Unless you are a scholar I would give this a miss