The Spanish Civil War: A History and Reference Guide (review)

A simple chronicle of the main events and the interactions of the political factions and personalities of the era of the Spanish Civil War, punctuated by graphic word pictures of such items as the degradations of poverty and the horrors of hate-filled massacres, is as far as this excursion by James M. Anderson goes into the complex subject of the Spanish Civil War. Anderson, professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Calgary, recounts the main features of this tragic episode with little interpretation except for a traditional liberal view of the Spanish conflict. Anderson's narrative touches on the economic, social, and political conflicts that produced the Second Republic, and on the checkered history of the Republic and the centrifugal forces that pulled it apart. He then summarizes the military campaigns, the incessant infighting within the Republican camp and the imposed unity under general Francisco Franco on the Nationalist side, and the progressively weaker ability of the Republic to sustain a war effort, due both to self-imposed and internationally imposed impediments. He further summarizes the role of the International Brigades, and sketches the participation of women, artists, writers, and educators, especially those in favor of the Republican cause. Anderson includes biographies of some major figures and an assortment of documents.

The text, however, is fraught with errors of detail. The pitfalls of writing from a less than secure knowledge base are compounded by a narrative written three steps away from the evidence. This is a generalized summary drawn from certain general histories in English and repeating or even imaginatively embellishing their errors. These histories in their turn draw upon the secondary literature that plumbs the sources. The publisher indicates that, "for students, researchers, and general readers, this is the ideal place to begin investigating this exceedingly complex, fascinating, and ultimately tragic period in 20th century history."

However, an exposition, let alone an evaluation, of the main interpretations and debates in the historiography of the Spanish Civil War is entirely lacking. The brief idiosyncratic bibliography of works in English, with its emphasis on shorter general histories, is an insufficient guide for research projects. Neither the text nor the bibliography, therefore, provide an adequate starting place for exploring dimensions of the subject. Perhaps one could see this book as an elementary introduction for secondary school and first year college students and the general reader, but all would be better served by one of the standard general histories, such as that by George Esenwein and Adrian Shubert, Spain at War: The Spanish Civil War in Context, 1931-1939 (1995). There is a place open for a brief introduction to the Spanish Civil War that could also be a useful beginning place for further research, but it should be one constructed on a more firm foundation in the subject than that provided by this volume.