Audiobook: The Battle For Spain - Antony Beevor (Unabridged - 16 CDs)

Audio Books : Misc. Educational : MP3/64Kbps : English







The civil war that tore Spain apart between 1936 and 1939 and attracted liberals and socialists from across the world to support the cause against Franco was one of the most hard-fought and bitterest conflicts of the 20th century: a war of atrocities and political genocide and a military testing ground before WWII for the Russians, Italians and Germans, whose Condor Legion so notoriously destroyed Guernica. This was Antony Beevor's first work of non-fiction, pre-dating his international bestselling STALINGRAD and BERLIN: THE DOWNFALL 1945. Now, more than 20 years later, he has substantially rewritten it drawing on masses of newly-discovered material from the Spanish, Russian and German archives. His account narrates the origins of the Civil War and its violent and dramatic course from the coup d'etat in July 1936 through the savage fighting of the next three years which ended in catastrophic defeat for the Republicans in 1939. And he succeeds especially well in unravelling the complex political and regional forces that played such an important part in the origins and history of the war.

From the Inside Flap
When the first version of this book was published in 1982 under the title, The Spanish Civil War, Gerald Brenan described it as 'by a long way the best, and fairest and the most accurate book upon it'. Over the intervening years, a huge amount of new material has appeared in Spain and from documents finally emerging from Russian, German and other archives. Antony Beevor's Spanish publisher persuaded him that the time was right, with the approach of the war's seventieth anniversary, to rewrite the book, taking advantage of the new information and reinforcing it with new research. The Spanish edition, published in September, 2005, ran to over 900 pages, and received a [adjective to be chosen later depending on the outcome!!] reception in Spain as the first major history of the subject for the 21st Century. This version, incorporating still more detail from foreign archives, is necessarily condensed for British and overseas markets. The Spanish Civil War, even after all these years, remains one of the most passionately debated conflicts of modern times. Many see it as the opening round of the Second World War and almost a world war by proxy, with Nazi, Fasist and Soviet intervention. Some supporters of the Republic still believe that a victory of the left in Spain would have defeated fascism and saved Europe from the horrors to come. Nationalists, on the other hand, argue that the civil war was in fact the opening round of the Cold War between western civilisation and Soviet dictatorship. This book charts not only the course of the war in a fresh light, but illuminates the vicious infighting on both sides. The hopes and fears of a whole generation foundered in disillusionment and despair at the cruel war which destroyed the Spanish Republic. From reviews of the original work 'It is a rare book which cannot be supplemented, and Antony Beevor writes with insight, skill and an admirably pithy style both in narrative and characterisation.' John Keegan in The Sunday Times. 'Bold, clean driving narrative.' The Times Literary Supplement. 'Lucid, expert and even-handed.' The Economist. Antony Beevor served as a regular officer in the 11th Hussars in Germany. STALINGRAD and BERLIN: THE DOWNFALL have been translated into 25 languages and won a plethora of the major prizes. His latest work, A WRITER AT WAR - VASILY GROSSMAN WITH THE RED ARMY 1941-1945, is an edition, with his Russian researcher, Dr Luba Vinogradova, of Grossman's wartime notebooks. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in France, Beevor has been chairman of Society of Authors; he is a visiting professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is married to the writer Artemis Cooper.

From the Back Cover
FROM REVIEWS OF THE SPANISH 2005 EDITION WHICH RECEIVED THE LA VANGUARDIA PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION. 'From the very first moment, Beevor recreates the political climate of the period. . . The structure of the book, the rhythm of the action, his insights on the characters, the white terror, the red terror, the revolution and the political infighting, the foreign intervention: all, despite belonging to that 'other country', put us right back in the war amid the flames of those years. Yet it is in his account of the military operations that Beevor is at his most brilliant. . . . This book is destined for the first rank of general histories of the Civil War.' Santos Julia in El Pais. 'All in all, perhaps the best general work on the war to be published in the last decades.' Rafael Nunez Florencio in El Mundo 'Beevor has surpassed the challenge he set himself with efficacy, rigour, soundness and clarity.' Xavier Casals in Clio 'His narrative capacity, which has fascinated his readers since Stalingrad, is confirmed once again in this book, which will contribute, without doubt, to constructing the historical memory of the civil war which we need: a non-sectarian memory, broad and deep, which covers all sides of the miasma and which explores the reasons which led to to that sleep of the reason which was our last civil war.' Ricardo Garcia Carcel, ABC 'The magnificent book of Antony Beevor on the Civil War, really using this time the Moscow archives and the recent bibliography of the war, shows how to explain the logic of the war.' Antonio Elorza in El Pais

About the Author
Antony Beevor served as a regular officer in the 11th Hussars in Germany. STALINGRAD and BERLIN: THE DOWNFALL have been translated into 25 languages and won a plethora of the major prizes. His latest work, A WRITER AT WAR - VASILY GROSSMAN WITH THE RED ARMY 1941-1945, is an edition, with his Russian researcher, Dr Luba Vinogradova, of Grossman's wartime notebooks. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in France, Beevor has been chairman of Society of Authors; he is a visiting professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is married to the writer Artemis Cooper.