15 The Spanish Civil War

Overviews and review articles

S.G.Payne, ‘Recent historiography on the Spanish Republic and Civil War’, The Journal of
Modern History, 60, 3 (1988), 540-66 [JSTOR]
Blinkhorn, M., Democracy and Civil War in Spain, 1931-1939 (1988)
G. Esenwein, and A. Shubert, Spain at War. The Spanish Civil War in Context, 1931-9
(1995)
P. Preston, A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War (1996)
H. Graham, The Spanish Civil War. A Very Short Introduction (2005)
F. Romero Salvado, The Spanish Civil War: Origins, Course and Outcomes (2005)
J.Casanova, Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain (2005)
C. Ealham and M.Richards (eds.), The Splintering of Spain: New Historical Perspectives on
the Spanish Civil War (2005)

i. The Second Republic and the origins of the Civil War

E. Malefakis, Agrarian Reform and Peasant Revolution in Spain: The Origins of the Civil War
(1970)
P. Preston, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction and Revolution in the
Second Republic (1978)
P. Preston (ed.), Revolution and War in Spain (1984)
S.G. Payne, ‘Political Violence during the Spanish Second Republic’, Journal of
Contemporary History, 25 (1990), 269-88 [JSTOR]
S.G. Payne, Spain’s First Democracy (1993)

ii. International involvement

D. Little, Malevolent Neutrality: The United States, Great Britain, and the Origins of the
Spanish Civil War (1985)
K.Bradley and M. Chappell, International Brigades in Spain, 1936-39 (1994)
T. Buchanan, Britain and the Spanish Civil War (1997)
M. Alpert, A New International History of the Spanish Civil War (1997)
S. Balfour and P. Preston (eds), Spain and the Great Powers (1999)
G. Howson, Arms for Spain: The Untold Story of the Spanish Civil war (1999)
C. Leitz and D.J.Dunthorn (eds.), Spain in International Context 1936-1959 (1999)
R. Stradling, History and Legend. Writing the International Brigades (2003)

iii. Primary Sources

F. Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social
Conflicts of the Spanish
Civil war (1937)
G. Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938)

What were the origins of the Spanish Civil War? Was the fight against the nationalists a
battle for democracy or a struggle for revolution? Was the Spanish Civil War a national or an
international conflict?
This essay deals with the causes and development of the Spanish Civil War. The first two
sections reveal the multiple cleavages (religious, political, nationalist) that polarised Spanish
society, and the last section deals with the international dimensions of the war and the role
of foreign intervention in determining its outcome.