A Time of Silence
A Time of Silence
$139.00
USDThe years 1936–1945 in Spain saw catastrophic civil war followed by fierce repression and economic misery. Families were torn apart and social relations were disrupted by death, exile and defeat. Society became traumatized so deeply that people avoided talking openly of these years for decades. This study attempts to show how the Civil War was understood and absorbed, particularly by those who could claim themselves as 'the victors', during and in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. It does so by exploring the interchanges between violence, ideas and economics during a period in which liberalism was seen as foreign contagion that infected carriers of impurities such as freemasons, regional nationalists, the working class, non-Catholics and women. This was the context of the internal colonization that confirmed Franco's victory, concentrated economic power, and left executions and starvation in its wake.
- A new account of the political and economic background to the Spanish Civil War which continues to 1945 after Franco's 'victory'
- The only account ever attempted of the background of political violence and repression which marked the later years covered by the book
- Takes an original approach in looking at the connection between Catholicism, Fascism and violence
Reviews & endorsements
"This provocative work is undermined by repetition and by the author's uninterrupted loathing of its subjects. Upper-division undergraduates and above." Choice
"Michael Richards's is a sober and meticulous scholarly analysis of how the Nationalist regime...imposed its particular brand of economic self-sufficiency on the Spanish population. Richards's book is a grimly fascinating account of hoe the regime perpetuated a climate of self-righteous criminality. This book is a brilliant examination of how Franco and his advisors carried out their brutal campaign to silence and destroy their enemies while, with self-righteous breastbeating, they attempted to claim their place in history as the saviors of Spain." American Historical Review
"...Richards' book is interesting..." Catholic Historical Review
"...[a] valuable and well-informed contribution to the study of Spain during the Civil War and the Second World War." World War Two Studies Association
"This is an important book which constitutes a very considerable achievement. Richards has written the most complete, perspicacious, and moving book that has been published to date on the Francoist repression. Richards goes further not only in that he covers the entire geographical territory of Spain and a lengthy period encompassing both the civil war and the period of the post-war repression that was most intense, but also because of the originality of his methodology. His work is a timely reminder that, while the eyes of the world were turned elsewhere, Spain suffered its own holocaust." Canadian Journal of History
"A Time of Silence offers a stimulating and provocative interpretation of teh early Franco regime that will provide a framework for significant new research into the "forgotten" postwar years...succeeds brilliantly in posing new question, breaking down old categories, and suggesting new ways of formulating problems." Jrnl of Modern History, Vol 73 , No. 2 Jun,01
Product details
October 1998Hardback
9780521594011
328 pages
236 × 161 × 28 mm
0.71kg
12 b/w illus.
Available
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Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I. The Context of Self-Sufficiency:
- 1. Civil War and self-sufficiency: the Francoist reconstruction of nation and state
- 2. Purifying Spain (i): the elimination of dissent
- 3. Purifying Spain (ii): degeneration and treatment
- 4. The 'verticalisation' of Spain: the state and work
- Part II. The Practice of Self-Sufficiency:
- 5. The politics and economics of autarky
- 6. The wages of autarky (i): self-sufficiency and industry
- 7. The wages of autarky (ii): the myth and reality of rural life
- 8. Austerity and resistance
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index.
