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Loading... ¡Guerra! : living in the shadows of the Spanish Civil War (edition 2007)by Jason Webster
Work InformationGuerra by Jason Webster
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I have just read through other people's reviews and I agree with the couple of people who have left comments - I'm skipping over quite a lot of the civil war history parts (because I prefer to hear about them from a proper historian and not a cut and paste from other sources) and quite enjoying the personal bits - although I think he is being a bit shifty about not knowing anything at the beginning. After 12 years in Spain that is a bit weird. The number of people who have put 4 or 5 stars on without commenting also looks rather shifty - I suspect a bit of an attempt to make the author look good. ( ) The fist-fight described in the first chapter is quite a shock, and sets the tone for this excellent assessment of a search in modern Spain for the truth about the Civil War. Always a touchy subject in Spain, and one we never broach with our neighbours here, Webster stumbles on evidence near to his home north of Valencia. His journey takes him to key locations such as Burgos, Madrid and Guernica as he alternates chapters between now and the 1930s. His style is easy to read, populated as it is equally with an authority about his subject to an easy telling of his everyday travelling experiences. He gets under the skin of the real everyday Spain, the sort of places you get to only with fluent Spanish, an ability to ask awkward questions and no fear at hearing unpleasant answers. It makes me want to read all this other books about Spain. Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ I have just read through other people's reviews and I agree with the couple of people who have left comments - I'm skipping over quite a lot of the civil war history parts (because I prefer to hear about them from a proper historian and not a cut and paste from other sources) and quite enjoying the personal bits - although I think he is being a bit shifty about not knowing anything at the beginning. After 12 years in Spain that is a bit weird. The number of people who have put 4 or 5 stars on without commenting also looks rather shifty - I suspect a bit of an attempt to make the author look good. Jason Webster is an Englisman living in Spain. However, his romantic notions of the country are threatened when he is shown a mass grave of Republican supporters from the Spanish Civil War. The book is his journey finding out more about the war and about attitudes towards it in present day Spain. Chapters tend to alternate between Webster's own experiences travelling around Spain and a chronlogical explanation of the war. His own experiences are interesting, as he discovers some surprising attitudes towards the past, although sometimes I did wonder the things that happened to him were a bit contrived, and one particular section about him being robbed, does really have any relation to the war at all. The history parts were great, for example it explained the different factions clearly, without being dull and the whole text was littered with interesting pieces of information. This was an ideal introduction to the subject particularly since my edition had a handy map, timeline and guide to the key figures. no reviews | add a review
After twelve years in Spain, Jason Webster had developed a deep love for his adopted homeland; his life there seemed complete. But when he and his Spanish wife moved into an idyllic old farmhouse in the mountains north of Valencia, by chance he found an unmarked mass grave from the Spanish Civil War on his doorstep. Spurred to investigate the history of the Civil War, a topic many of his Spanish friends still seemed to treat as taboo, he began to uncover a darker side to the country. Witness to a brutal fist-fight sponsored by remnants of Franco's Falangists, arrested and threatened by the police in the former HQ of the Spanish Foreign Legion, sheltered by a beautiful transvestite, shunned by locals, haunted by ghosts and finally robbed of his identity, Webster encountered a legacy of cruelty and violence that seems to linger on seventy years after the bloody events of that war.As in Webster's previous books, Duende and Andalus, 'GUERRA! reveals the essence of modern Spain, which few outsiders ever manage to see. Fascinating true stories from the Civil War, vividly retold as he travels around the country. Yet the more Webster unveils of the passions that set one countryman against another, the more he is led to wonder- could the dark, primitive currents that ripped the country apartin the 1930s still be stirring under the sophisticated, worldly surface of today's Spain? No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)946.081History & geography History of Europe Spain, Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal Spain Second Republic; Dictatorship; Juan Carlos I; Felipe VI 1931- Second Republic; Spanish Civil WarLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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