Britain and the Spanish Civil War

No foreign conflict has had a greater impact on modern British politics than the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). More than other conflicts of the 1930s in Abyssinia and China, or more recent wars in Vietnam and Bosnia, the Spanish Civil War served to galvanise political activity in Britain, in support both of the Republican government and of Franco’s Nationalist rebels. Familiar aspects, such as the role of the British government, the intellectuals, and the International Brigades are reinterpreted alongside the first detailed accounts of previously neglected subjects such as right-wing and religious opinion. In addition, Buchanan shows how the Civil War acted not only as a symbol of anti-fascism for the Left, but also as a positive example of a ‘New Spain’ arising from the ashes of the old. Many new archival sources are used to offer a stimulating interpretation of a subject of great significance to twentieth-century Britain.