![]() ![]() ![]() The narration seldom pauses to analyze a person’s character, or to relate a telling anecdote, but instead maintains the perspective of a general examining his troops.īeevor’s considerable powers of narration notwithstanding, he can’t help the fact that this war is complicated. His focus is more on large-scale movements than on individual stories. He never lets the material run away from him, but compresses complex events into well-turned sentences. He surveys the battlefield like an aerial observer he reports power struggles like an investigative journalist. His paragraphs are mines of information he summarizes, offers statistics, gives striking examples. He focuses on the Iberian peninsula in the years between 1936-39.īeevor is an excellent writer. Like any historian, Beevor needs to set limits to his material. ![]() ![]() The forces that destabilized the government and created so much tension within the country are quickly summarized and the aftermath of the war-its legacy, its lingering effects in Spanish political life, its wider significance in 20th century political history-all this is hinted at, but not delved into. As the Spanish Civil War proved, the first casualty of war is not truth, but its source: the conscience and integrity of the individual.Īnthony Beevor is a military historian and his book is mainly a record of armies and battles. ![]()
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