Mass Killings and Violence in Spain, 1936-1952 Grappling with the Past

"These 10 essays by some of the leading and/or up-and-coming British and Spanish scholars in the field fit within the growing challenge to the triumphalist, Francoist interpretation of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and the Franco dictatorship (1939-75)...While the chapters are built on primary sources gleaned from the growing number of records and accounts of atrocities emerging after 1975, the result is a highly politically charged volume that comes down hard on everyone from the egomaniacal General Quiepo de Llano, who signaled his bloody ways long before betraying the Republic at the start of the Civil War, to the British diplomacy that kept Francoist repression afloat, and the Catholic Church's role in buttressing the Francoist discourses on prisons, prisoners, and the possibility of redemption through bloody repression. Summing Up: Recommended." - E. A. Sanabria, University of New Mexico, CHOICE

"All contributors are worthy exponents of renewed trends in the analysis of state repression and social attitudes towards violence and offer innovative themes and approaches...there is little doubt that this book makes a very important contribution to its field." - Daniel Oviedo Silva, Nottingham University, UK, European History Quarterly

"This brilliant collective volume must be considered essential reading 'for historians grappling with the Francoist past.' (...) Peter Anderson and Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco edited an outstanding overview of repression in Spain between the start of the Civil War and the defeat of the anti-Francoist guerrilla movement that ultimately succeeds in 'challenging the Francoist interpretation of the past and in many cases cast new light on that past." - Rúben Serém, University of Nottingham