Overview

Love, war, duty, faith, betrayal and belief – a revolutionary new view of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes and experiences of the women who endured it, by the greatest historian of Spain: ‘Passionate and deeply moving… when Preston writes about these women, you feel as if you are in their company.’ Scotland on Sunday ‘Four extraordinary women whose personal histories should dispel any illusions that the Spanish Civil War was an all-male war…Written with a shrewd eye and a sure touch, the book is full of wonderful stories and acute observations. Above all, these are compellingly human dramas in which moral issues, right and wrong, Fascism and Communism, melt away.’ Sunday Telegraph The Aristocrat: PIP SCOTT-ELLIS fell in love with a Spanish prince and set off for Madrid in a chauffeur-driven limousine. She ended up nursing in front-line Francoist hospitals. The Communist: NAN GREEN, by contrast, travelled to war third class. Leaving her children behind in England, she went to fight for the International Brigade. The Intellectual: MARGARITA NELKEN was an art critic and novelist, who had translated Kafka into Spanish. Denounced as a whore by the Catholic Right, she became a radical politician. The Fascist: After her husband was killed in the fighting and miscarrying her baby on hearing the news, MERCEDES SANZ-BACHILLER set up a welfare organisation that was to change the face of Spain. ‘Preston has harnessed biography to serve history by vividly telling the stories of four very different women whose lives were starkly altered by the conflict… significant, tragic and remarkable’ Irish Times

Full Product Details

9780006386940

Table of Contents

Reviews

'A magnificent achievement. Preston combines the skills of the professional historian with a profound understanding of women. Eminently readable, this is narrative history at its best.' Literary Review 'Newcomers to the Spanish conflict could hardly find a better place to start.' Sunday Times

Paul Preston, Professor of Iberian History at LSE, has brought his encyclopaedic knowledge of Spain and the Spanish Civil War to bear on this unusual biographical work about four women who all took an active part in that devastating conflict. He chose two staunch Republicans, and two on the Francoist side, all totally dedicated to their cause. Their stories are largely forgotten but he has brought them to life, and illuminated their times, using an impressive number of diaries, letters and contemporary documents. These women never met but they all not only experienced the horrors and bereavements of the war but also suffered in different ways from the suppression of women in Spanish male-dominated society. They were also linked by their courage and initiative and by the terrible emotional cost of the war in their lives. Two of the women were English, fighting on opposite sides: Nan Green, a Communist, who joined her husband in the International Brigades, and Priscilla Scott-Ellis, a socialite who soon came down to earth working in the frontline hospitals. Mercedes Sanz-Bachiller was the widow of a Falangist, and threw herself into welfare work on a wide scale, which soon made her a very powerful woman in the Francoist zone. Perhaps the most interesting, talented and unusual woman of the four was Margarita Nelken, a revolutionary feminist, writer and Socialist Member of Parliament representing poverty-stricken rural labourers before the war began. She worked tirelessly, and when Madrid was besieged, she battled on many fronts, especially in the Union of Anti-Fascist Women. Finally the victorious Francoists sought their revenge and she had to flee into exile with so many others, with all her hopes crushed. The shadow of the war hung over the rest of all their lives. This is a brilliant study of one of the 20th century's most brutal conflicts, filtered through the experiences of four exceptional women. (Kirkus UK)

'A magnificent achievement. Preston combines the skills of the professional historian with a profound understanding of women. Eminently readable, this is narrative history at its best.' Literary Review 'Newcomers to the Spanish conflict could hardly find a better place to start.' Sunday Times On Comrades: 'Paul Preston knows more about the Spanish Civil War than any other Englishman; more, even, than those who fought it. Anyone interested in Spain will want this book.' ALLAN MASSIE, Daily Telegraph On Franco: 'It is difficult to see this marvellous, brilliantly written and surely authoritative biography ever being matched. It is a book any historian would have been proud to have written.' IAN KERSHAW, THES On A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War: 'Paul Preston has an exceptional gift of lucid exposition, clarifying but not over-simplifying political situations often bafflingly complicated.' V. G. KIERNAN

Author Information

Paul Preston is Príncipe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History and Director of the Cañada Blanch Centre of Contemporary Spanish Studies at the LSE. He was lecturer at the University of Reading then successively lecturer in, reader in and Professor of History at Queen Mary College, University of London. 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’. In 2000 he was awarded a CBE.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available