The Spanish Civil War: A Century in Focus - Softcover

On July 17, 1936, Spain suddenly burst onto the world stage when a group of generals rebelled against the legitimate Republican government. The youngest of the generals, Francisco Franco, stood out as a charismatic leader. The rebellion received the immediate support of Hitler and Mussolini. The world took sides: Stalin and the Communist International lined up alongside the Popular Front government, which received only lukewarm support from France, England, and the United States. The coup led to a long war, in which thousands of volunteers fought and died. The world interpreted the war as a struggle between fascism and democracy but it was primarily a civil war, in which the two sides of Spain confronted each other: on the one hand, rural, nationalist, and Catholic, and on the other, metropolitan, secular, and Republican. The terrible fighting - as in every civil war - lowered the level of civilization on both sides. For three years, before the country finally sank into a long dictatorship, Spain offered a scene that prefigured the horrors of the Second World War.