A powerful biography of Spain's great king, Juan Carlos. How did a playful, moody young prince, educated to sustain Franco's dicatorship, mature into the skilful, calm and brave king who defended Spain's infant democracy from siege and then nurtured it into health? It's a fascinating story, given definitively here in this gripping portrait. There are two central mysteries in the life of Juan Carlos, one personal, the other political. How to explain the apparent serenity with which he accepted that his father had surrendered him, to all intents and purposes, into the safekeeping of the Franco regime? In any normal family, this would have been considered a kind of cruelty or, at the very least, baleful negligence. But a royal family can never be normal, and the decision to send the young Juan Carlos away from Spain was governed by a certain 'superior' dynastic logic. The second mystery lies in how a prince raised in a family with the strictest authoritarian tradtiions, obliged to conform to the Francoist norms during his youth and early manhood, and educated to be a cornerstone of the plans for the reinforcement of the dictatorship, sided, when he had to, so emphatically and courageously with democratic principles. Paul Preston -- who has thrown more light onto the sometimes inspiring, often shameful, always eventful history of Spain in the twentieth century than any other living commentator -- has set out to address these mysteries and in so doing written perhaps the definitive biography of King Juan Carlos. He tackles the king's turbulent relationship with his father, his cloistered education and his resistance to it, his bravery in opposing the attempt to overthrow the infant democracy a few years after Franco's death, and his immense hard work in consolidating parliamentary democracy in Spain. The resultant biography is both rigorous and riveting, its vibrant prose doing justice to its vibrant subject. It is a book fit for a king.

Juan Carlos

PRESTON, Paul.

Biographies & Memoirs

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

Love, war, duty, faith, betrayal and belief - this book presents a portrait of the Spanish Civil War from the viewpoint of the experience of four women. The last war fought for ideals, the Spanish Civil War tore Spain apart. Much has been written about its effects on the people and country but little about the women involved. However, behind the well-documented experiences of Martha Gellhorn and La Pasionaria lie the forgotten stories of the women whose lives proved crucial to the struggle - and to understanding it. In "Doves of War", Paul Preston focuses on the stories of four women whose very different beliefs and experiences help crystallise a new vision of the Spanish Civil War. In the book, as in the war, communist is pitted against fascist. In the red corner we have Margarita Nelken the revolutionary feminist, writer and politician; and Nan Green the Communist nurse whose International Brigader husband was killed in battle on the last day of the war. In the blue corner there is Mercedes Sanz Bachiller whose entry into politics rapidly followed her miscarriage on hearing of the death of her husband in battle, and Priscilla Scott-Ellis daughter of a supporter of Oswald Mosley and married, with disastrous results, to a Spanish playboy, her alcoholic and sexual exploits with the German airforce notorious. Each story casts a different light on the events of the war and on the experiences of women in Spain.

Doves of War

Harpercollins

This is a bravura new interpretation of the course, causes and characters of the Spanish Civil War, which remains the twentieth century's bloodiest internal conflict. Any analysis of the war has always focused on victors and vanquished, but what of those who eschewed the struggle, those who stood apart from the carnage and chaos? Starting at the extreme right of chaos? Starting at the extreme right of the political-spectrum and moving across it to the extreme left, using the emblematic lives of nine key individuals, Preston builds up an astonishingly vivid picture of how the war came to pass, and how those who started, suffered and stopped it were coloured by the experience. Here are brilliant psychological profiles of the communist firebrand La Pasionaria, of the canny falangist Primo de Rivera, of the aloof intellectual Salvador de Madariaga, and of the enigma himself, Generalissimo Franco.

Comrades! Portraits from the Spanish Civil War

Historical

Love, war, duty, faith, betrayal and belief - an alternative view of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes and experiences of the women who endured it. Here are the stories of four extraordinary women whose personal histories should dispel any illusions that the Spanish Civil War was an all-male war. Theirs are human dramas in which moral issues, right and wrong, Fascism and Communism, melt away.

Doves of War (Five Women of the Spanish Civil War)

A brilliant new portrait of the Spanish Civil War from our greatest historian of Spain. 'Anyone interested in Spain will want this book.' Alan Massie, Daily Telegraph A bravura new interpretation of the course, causes and characters of the Spanish Civil War, still the twentieth century's bloodiest internal conflict. Analysis of the Civil War has always focused on victors and vanquished, but what of those who eschewed the struggle, those who stood apart from the carnage and chaos? Was there a Third Way? Starting at the extreme right of the political spectrum and moving across it to the extreme left, using the emblematic lives of ten key individuals, Preston builds up an astonishingly vivid picture of how the War came to pass, and how those who started, suffered and stopped it were coloured by the experience. Here are brilliant psychological profiles of the communist firebrand La Pasionaria, of the canny falangist Primo de Rivera, of the aloof intellectual non-participant Salvador Madariaga, and of the enigma himself, Generalissimo Franco. 'Comrades presents us with fascinating portraits, case studies that illustrate variously nobility, arrogance, self-delusion and evil. It remains d

Comrades

History

Europe

Fontana Press

An account of the Spanish civil war which portrays the struggles of the war, as well as discussing the wider implications of the revolution in the Republican zone, the emergence of brutal dictatorship on the nationalist side and the extent to which the Spanish war prefigured World War II.

A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War

Juan Carlos: Steering Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy (Text Only)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Men's Health

From the foremost historian of 20th century Spain, A People Betrayed is the story of the devastating betrayal of Spain by its political class, its military and its Church. 
This comprehensive history of modern Spain chronicles the fomenting of violent social division throughout the country by institutionalised corruption and startling political incompetence. Most spectacularly during the Primo de Rivera and Franco dictatorships, grotesque and shameless corruption went hand-in-hand with inept policies that prolonged Spain’s economic backwardness well into the 1950s. 
A People Betrayed looks back to the years prior to 1923 when electoral corruption excluded the masses from organized politics and gave them a choice between apathetic acceptance and violent revolution. Bitter social conflict, economic tensions and conflict between centralist nationalism and regional independence movements then exploded into the civil war of 1936-1939. 
It took the horrors of that war and the dictatorship that followed to break the pattern. The moderation shared by the progressive right and a chastened left underlay a bloodless transition to democracy after 1975. Yet, as before, corruption and political incompetence continued to have a corrosive effect on political coexistence and social cohesion. 
Sparkling with vivid portraits of politicians and army officers, some corrupt and others clean, recounting the triumphs and disasters of Kings Alfonso XIII and Juan Carlos, A People Betrayed unravels the mystery of why both right and left have been unable or unwilling to deal with corruption and the pernicious clash between Spanish centralist nationalism and regional desires for independence.

A People Betrayed: A History of 20th Century Spain

William Collins

The life of the complex, ruthless adversary of General Franco, whose life spanned much of Spain’s turbulent 20th century.
From 1939 to 1975, the Spanish Communist Party, effectively lead for two decades by Santiago Carrillo, was the most determined opponent of General Franco’s Nationalist regime. Admired by many on the left as a revolutionary and a pillar of the anti-Franco struggle, and hated by others as a Stalinist gravedigger of the revolution, Santiago Carrillo was arguably the dictator’s most consistent left-wing enemy.
For many on the right, Carrillo was a monster to be vilified as a mass murderer for his activities during the Civil War. But his survival owed to certain qualities that he had in abundance – a capacity for hard work, stamina and endurance, writing and oratorical skills, intelligence and cunning – though honesty and loyalty were not among them.
One by one he turned on those who helped him in his desire for advancement, revealing the ruthless streak that he shared with Franco, and a zeal for rewriting his past. Drawing on the numerous, continuously revised accounts Carillo created of his life, and contrasting them with those produced by his friends and enemies, Spain’s greatest modern historian Paul Preston unravels the legend of a devastating and controversial figure at the heart of 20th-century Spanish politics.

The Last Stalinist

The life of the complex, ruthless adversary of General Franco, whose life spanned much of Spain’s turbulence in the 20th century.From 1939 to 1975, the Spanish Communist Party, effectively lead for two decades by Santiago Carrillo, was the most determined opponent of General Franco’s Nationalist regime. Admired by many on the left as a revolutionary and a pillar of the anti-Franco struggle and hated by others as a Stalinist gravedigger of the revolution, Santiago Carrillo was arguably the dictator’s most consistent left-wing enemy.For many on the right, Carrillo was a monster to be vilified as a mass murderer for his activities during the Civil War. But his survival owed to certain qualities that he had in abundance – a capacity for hard work, stamina and endurance, writing and oratorical skills, intelligence and cunning – though honesty and loyalty were not among them.One by one he turned on those who helped him in his desire for advancement, revealing the ruthless streak that he shared with Franco, and a zeal for rewriting his past. Drawing on the numerous, continuously revised accounts Carillo created of his life, and contrasting them with those produced by his friends and enemies, Spain’s greatest modern historian Paul Preston unravels the legend of a devastating and controversial figure at the heart of 20th century Spanish politics.

The Last Stalinist: The Life of Santiago Carrillo

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