The Spanish Civil War (book)

The Spanish Civil War is a book by British historian Hugh Thomas, first published in London by Eyre & Spottiswoode (xxix, 720 pages, illustrated with photos and maps).^[1] It won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1962.^[2] A second revised edition was published by Penguin Books in 1965.^[3] A third, revised and enlarged edition was published in 1977 by Harper & Row,^[4] which was printed again in 2001 and 2013.^[5] Thomas said that the excellent reviews the book got on its release were a determining factor in his own life and career.^[6]

The Spanish Civil War

Author	Hugh Thomas
Language	English
Subject	Spanish Civil War
Published	1961
Media type	Print
Pages	xx, 1115 [3rd, revised ed.]
ISBN	0060142782

The book has been translated in various languages, among them Greek, French and Spanish.

Reception

Upon its release in 1961, John Murray called it "an exhaustive study, ably and conscientiously documented".^[7] In 1963, Robert G. Colodny wrote a similarly positive review, praising in particular the vast amount of research material examined.^[8]

Shortly after the death of Thomas, Pablo Guimón called it "a seminal book on the Spanish Civil War", "a highly influential work during the country's transition to democracy" and "a classic reference in the existing literature about the 1936–1939 period in Spanish history".^[9] Paul Preston claimed that "it marked the first attempt at an objective general view" of the Civil War.^[10]

Richard Baxell wrote that "it is by no means faultless; there are many errors of fact and judgement and Thomas has rightly been accused of occasionally valuing narrative style above factual accuracy." Baxell is also critical of the faulty depiction of International Brigaders in the first edition.^[11]

In 2018 Saveriano Delgado Crux, a historian and librarian at the University of Salamanca, questioned the veracity of the book's account of the verbal confrontation that happened on 12 October 1936 between Miguel de Unamuno and General José Millán Astray at the University of Salamanca, during a conference celebrating the discovery of America. While not denying that a strong verbal exchange between Unamuno and Astray happened on that day, Delgado argues that Thomas's account about the event derives from a 1941 article by Luis Gabriel Portillo (who was not present at Salamanca) in the British magazine Horizon, which Thomas came across in an anthology while researching for the book. He questions the reliability of Portillo's article, comparing it to a "liturgical drama, where you have an angel and a devil confronting one another. What he wanted to do above all was symbolise evil—fascism, militarism, brutality—through Millán Astray, and set it against the democratic values of the republicans—liberalism and goodness—represented by Unamuno".^[12][13]

Spanish translation

The book was forbidden in Francoist Spain.^[14] The translation and the publication of the book was undertaken by Ruedo Ibérico [es], a publishing house in Paris founded by Spanish political refugees. It was targeted by Francoist authorities, and was the target of a terrorist attack by a pro-Franco group.^[15] Copies were smuggled across the border with France, and Spaniards caught in possession of the book sometimes went to prison. For example a Valencian, Octavio Jordá, was caught at the French border with a pair of suitcases packed with many copies of the book. Jordá was later found guilty of "illegal propaganda" and "spreading communism" and sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

It was only after Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 that the book could be freely distributed in Spain.^[16][17]

In response to Thomas's book, Franco's then minister of information, Manuel Fraga, set up an official centre for civil war studies to promote the regime's official historiography. So successful was the book that even Franco was regularly asked to comment on statements in it.^[18]

In 2016, the Spanish historian Guillermo Sanz Gallego argued that the Spanish translator, José Martinez, had manipulated his translation to follow an ideological pattern that favoured the Republican side. Moreover, the translation used less objective language than the original text in narrating events such as the assassinations of José Calvo Sotelo and Federico García Lorca. In the case of the Paracuellos massacres, the number of the deaths, several thousand in the original, was reduced to "approximately a thousand" (millar aproximado).^[19] Sanz Gallego's claims attracted attention from the media.^[20]

References

1. "The Spanish Civil War, First Edition". Naval Marine Archive. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
2. Cowell, Alan (10 May 2017). "Hugh Thomas, Prodigious Author of Spanish History, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
3. "The Spanish Civil War, revised edition". Naval Marine Archive. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
4. "The Spanish Civil War, revised and enlarged edition". Naval Marine Archive. ISBN 0060142782. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
5. "Kirkus Review". Kirkus. 19 August 2019.
6. Guimón, Pablo (8 May 2017). "Obituary: Hugh Thomas, author of seminal book on the Spanish Civil War". El País. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
7. Murray, John (Winter 1961). "Reviewed Works: The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas; The Grand Camouflage by Burnett Bolloten". An Irish Quarterly Review. 50 (200): 445–447 [445]. JSTOR 30103647.
8. Golodny, Robert G. (Winter 1963). "The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas". Science & Society. 27 (1): 77–80 [77]. JSTOR 40400911.
9. Guimón, Pablo (8 May 2017). "Obituary: Hugh Thomas, author of seminal book on the Spanish Civil War". El País. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
10. Preston, Paul (9 May 2017). "Lord Thomas of Swynnerton obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
11. Baxell, Richard (20 September 2017). . Archived from the original on 26 January 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
12. Jones, Sam (11 May 2018). "Spanish civil war speech invented by father of Michael Portillo, says historian". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.
13. Cruz, Severiano Delgado (2019). Arqueología de un mito: el acto del 12 de octubre de 1936 en el paraninfo de la Universidad de Salamanca (in Spanish). Sílex. ISBN 978-84-7737-872-3.
14. Samaniego, Fernando (22 November 2001). "Hugh Thomas afirma que los orígenes de la guerra civil son difíciles de entender". El País. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
15. Sanz Gallego, Guillermo (30 August 2016). "La traducción como manipulación historiográfica en el exilio: análisis paratextual e intertextual de la Guerra Civil Española de Hugh Thomas". Pensamiento y Cultura. 192 (780): a340. doi:10.3989/arbor.2016.780n4016. hdl:1854/LU-8534857.
16. Schudel, Matt (13 May 2017). "Hugh Thomas, historian whose 'Spanish Civil War' was smuggled across borders, dies at 85". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
17. Preston, Paul (9 May 2017). "Lord Thomas of Swynnerton obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 August 2019. It was accepted for publication in 1976.
18. Preston, Paul (9 May 2017). "Lord Thomas of Swynnerton obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
19. Sanz Gallego, Guillermo (30 August 2016). "La traducción como manipulación historiográfica en el exilio: análisis paratextual e intertextual de la Guerra Civil Española de Hugh Thomas". Pensamiento y Cultura. 192 (780): a340. doi:10.3989/arbor.2016.780n4016. hdl:1854/LU-8534857.
20. Alemany, Luis (15 June 2017). "Ruedo Ibérico manipuló 'La Guerra Civil española' de Hugh Thomas en beneficio de la II República". El Mundo. Retrieved 19 August 2019. La Guerra Civil española, del recién fallecido Hugh Thomas, no era como los españoles la leyeron. Pequeños flecos manipulados en la traducción por José Martínez, el editor de Ruedo Ibérico, enfatizaron algunos hechos y atenuaron otros con el fin de exponer un relato más propicio para los defensores de la II República.