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Podcast: New Books in European Politics
Episode: Charles J Esdaile, "The Spanish Civil War: A Military History" (Routledge, 2019)
Description: The Spanish Civil War: A Military History takes a new, military approach to the conflict that tore Spain apart from 1936 to 1939.
In many histories, the war has been treated as a primarily political event with the military narrative subsumed into a much broader picture of the Spain of 1936–9 in which the chief themes are revolution and counter-revolution. While remaining conscious of the politics of the struggle, this book looks at the war as above all a military event, and as one in whose outbreak specifically military issues – particularly the split in the armed forces produced by the long...