“Spain Mad”: British Engagement with the Spanish Civil War

Tom Buchanan (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

256 Seiten

2024
Liverpool University Press (Verlag)
978-1-80207-455-0 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

Taking inspiration from a police informer’s comment that his workmates had gone “Spain mad” in response to the Spanish Civil War, this book uses biographical studies to explore the nature of British engagement with the conflict. The opening chapter presents a general analysis of the subject and assesses the available evidence. Some 2400 Britons volunteered to fight in the conflict and some 500 died there. Accordingly, the International Brigades are well represented in the book, with chapters on two of the commanders of the British Battalion (Wilfred Macartney and Fred Copeman) and the Anglo-Canadian volunteer Frank Whitfield. Two of the other subjects (George Orwell and Felicia Browne) fought in other units. However, the book shows that engagement in the Civil War could take many forms: hence, the chapters on the journalist Philip Jordan, clergyman E. O. Iredell, and the humanitarian activist and politician G.T. Garratt. The remaining chapters look at three historians and writers who have shaped the understanding of the Civil War in Britain: Orwell, Hugh Thomas and Jim Fyrth. The book is based on extensive new research, and many of these subjects have never previously been studied in any depth.

Tom Buchanan is Professor of Modern British and European History at the University of Oxford's Department for Continuing Education, and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He is the author of three books and numerous articles on British involvement in the Spanish Civil War. His most recent book is Amnesty International and Human Rights Activism in Postwar Britain, 1945-1977 (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Preface and Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: “Spain mad”? Pro-Republican Activism during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

Chapter 2: Philip Jordan and the ambiguities of anti-Fascism

Chapter 3: Building the “Kingdom of God on earth”: Reverend E.O. Iredell and the Spanish Civil War

Chapter 4: Drake’s Drum: G. T. Garratt and the Plymouth Drake by-election of June 1937

Chapter 5: “Professional survivor”: the notorious life of Wilfred Macartney

Chapter 6: “Fred Bloody Copeman”: from mutiny to Moral Re-Armament

Chapter 7: Edith and Felicia: Dangerous journeys

Chapter 8: George Orwell and the political world of Homage to Catalonia

Chapter 9: 1961: Hugh Thomas at the turning point

Chapter 10: “Lifting the curtain”: Jim Fyrth and The Signal was Spain

Chapter 11: A Plaque for Azuara: In Search of Frank Whitfield

Afterword

Select Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	03.06.2024
Reihe/Serie	Liverpool Studies in Spanish History
Zusatzinfo	3 Illustrations
Verlagsort	Liverpool
Sprache	englisch
Maße	163 x 239 mm
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
ISBN-10	1-80207-455-4 / 1802074554
ISBN-13	978-1-80207-455-0 / 9781802074550
Zustand	Neuware