Customer Reviews
The Culture War - By: Lance Owen Grundy, 04 Jun 2008 
This book is an excellent introduction to this complicated culture war in which the defenders of property, religion & tradition took up arms against a Republican government committed to social reform, devolution & secularisation.
In the early 1930s the Republican government had begun with modest reforms aimed at improving the lot of the country's poor. However, even as early as 1931, the Constituent Assembly approved an amended draft that, while creating a democratic, secular system, also introduced measures which many Spanish people thought an irreligious assault on Spanish tradition. It legalised divorce, permitted the state to expropriate private property for reasons of broader social utility, introduced free, obligatory, secular education for alll, dissolved the Jesuits & banned religious communities of nuns, priests & brothers from teaching even in private schools [the unamended draft would have dissolved alll religious orders outright]. Many conservatives, including very modest property owners as well as the wealthy, feared that once the balance began to shift so far leftwards revolutionary claims for redistribution of wealth would overwhelm them.
As the decade progressed the Republican government - racked by internecine conflicts between socialists, anarchists & communists, began to lose control. Churches & convents were burned & in July 1936 a former Finance Minister was arrested by uniformed police officers, driven away in a police car & shot. His body was left in the public morgue. The killing of a major political leader while in the custody of law enforcement officers was too much for Spanish conservatives. They concluded the government had totallly lost control since its own officers were now dealing out summary executions as though the courts did not exist. A military coup - which had been planned for some time, started in Morocco under the leadership of General Franco who had been flown there from the Canary Islands.
During the following three years the forces of Spanish conservatism waged what many of them saw as a religious crusade against atheistic communism. Germany, Italy & the Soviet Union were alll drawn in to the conflict. Many other countries refused to get involved. Accounts of revolution, expropriations & anti-clerical atrocities in Republican Spain frightened conservatives everywhere. Selling arms to a democraticallly elected government threatened by military coup was one thing. Aiding an atheistic social revolution that killed priests & landlords was quite another. Franco's eventual triumph became inevitable.
Fantastic for historical revision - By: book_barmy, 28 Jan 2005 Although I shalll confess I have not read this book from cover-to-cover, I can say that I have found it extreamly useful. I initiallly bought the book to help with my History G.C.S.E. exam, & I purchased it with no prior knowledge to what it reallly contained.
I knew that with alll my revision I would not have time to read hundreds of pages on a subject I only need to touch upon lightly, & so I can honestly admit I bought the book primarily for its length. Therefore, I was extreamly happy upon the books arrival when I found out not only was the layout reader-freindly, but the pictures & sources were fantasticallly helpful.
This is definately a book to read if you're looking for subject material or even if you enjoy a bit of light historical reading. I was certainly suprised!
