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The Civil War
rise in the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries, when characters
such as Ferdinand and Isabel, and
Columbus and Magellan, shaped the
country’s outlook for the next three
hundred years.
Giles Tremlett
Ghosts of
Spain
.
The Guardian
’s Madrid
correspondent takes a warts-and-all
look at contemporary Spain, and finds
the dark days of the Civil War never
very far from the surface, even now.
It’s a terrific read – if you buy just
one book for general background on
how modern Spain works and what
its people think, this should be it.
Gerald Brenan
The Spanish
Labyrinth
. First published in 1943,
Brenan’s record of the background to
the Civil War is tinged by personal
experience, yet still impressively
rounded.
George Orwell
Homage to
Catalonia
. Stirring account of the
CivilWar fight on the Aragón front
and Orwell’s participation in the early
exhilaration of revolution in Barcelona.
A forthright, honest and entertain-
ing tale, covering Orwell’s injury and
subsequent flight from the factional
infighting in Republican Spain.
Paul Preston
A Concise History
of the Spanish Civil War
and
Franco
.
The leading historian of twentieth-
century Spain offers
Civil War
, an
easily accessible introduction to the
subject, and
Franco
, a penetrating and
monumental biography of Franco
and his regime.
Hugh Thomas
The Spanish Civil
War
. Exhaustive political study of
the period that is still the best single
telling of the convoluted story of the
Civil War.
Art, architecture and style
Gijs van Hensbergen
Gaudí:
The Biography
. A worthy bio-
graphy of “arguably the world’s
most famous architect”.Van Hens-
bergen puts substantial flesh on the
man while placing his work firmly
in context, as Spain lost its empire
and Catalunya slowly flexed her
nationalist muscles.
John Richardson
A Life of Picasso
.
The definitive multi-volume bio-
graphy -Volume 1, covering the
period 1881–1906, is an extremely
readable account of the artist’s early
years, covering the whole of his time
in Barcelona.
Phyllis Richardson
Style City:
Barcelona
. Part guide, part celebration
of everything that’s considered cool
about contemporary Barcelona.The
book covers the sharpest restaurant
interiors to the latest galleries, arti-
sans’ studios to Art Nouveau bars,
accompanied by 350 colour photo-
graphs that show Barcelona in its
most flattering light.
Philippe Thiébaut
Gaudí: Builder
of Visions
. Read van Hensbergen for
the life, but pick up this pocket-sized
volume for its excellent photo-
graphic coverage – not just Gaudí
buildings and interiors, but sketches,
historical photographs and architec-
tural insights that add up to a useful
gateway to his work in the city and
surroundings.
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