18 agosto 2006

Battle for Spain

"A civil war is not a war but a sickness", wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The thin
g is every time I go to Chapters I buy a book. In this case about the Spanish Civil War. It´s said that if you want to read a good book about the Spanish Civil War you have to choose English authors. Why? Because it´s supposed they can remain more objetive than the Spanish historians, who could be moved by political interest or suffer lack of neutrality.

The point is this book has good reviews from El Pais, El mundo, ABC.. so I guess it is worth it. The first version of this work was published in 1982 and this new edition has been improved with new documents from the Russian and German archives. I´ve only read the Introduction but I can´t help it quoting this:

" Yet the Spanish Civil War remains one of the few moderm conflicts whose history had been written more effectively by the losers than by the winners"


And if you take into account that the truth is always the first victim of war... Well, as I said before this book can be worth it.

PD: Tambien, manda narices el comprarme un libro de la Guerra Civil en inglés ;-)

2 comentarios:

dgb_butterfly dijo...

I will take the advice and read it!

I agree, Manda narices!!!

Zorro de Segovia dijo...

Cuidadín con los libros sobre acontecimientos de hace menos de 200 años. SIEMPRE son parciales. He leído varios sobre este tema en concreto y todos me suscitaron dudas sobre la inspiración del autor. Los anglosajones, por ejemplo, han escrito mucho sobre este triste episodio de nuestra Historia y casi ninguno se dedica a investigar por qué tuvo lugar. Lo que más les gusta es escribir sobre el porqué de que el bando republicano perdiera la guerra. No obstante, como no he leído esta nueva revisión, esperaré a hacerlo para criticarla debidamente.