Amid the many catastrophes of the twentieth century, the Spanish Civil War continues to exert a particular fascination among history buffs and the lay-reader alike. This Very Short Introduction integrates the political, social and cultural history of the Spanish Civil War. It sets out the domestic and international context of the war for a general readership. In addition to tracing the course of war, the book locates the war's origins in the cumulative social and cultural anxieties provoked by a process of rapid, uneven and accelerating modernism taking place all over Europe. This shared context is key to the continued sense of the war's importance. The book also examines the myriad of political polemics to which the war has given rise, as well as all of the latest historical debates. It assesses the impact of the war on Spain's transition to democracy and on the country's contemporary political culture.

About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

Out of the social and economic turmoil of Europe in the 1930s, the Popular Front emerged as the spearhead of the left's bid to stop fascism in its tracks. Fifty years on from the birth of the Popular Front this edited collection assesses the impact of the idea of bourgeois-proletarian alliance on the European left as a whole. It also examines the fate of the Popular Front governments, both in France, which remained nominally 'at peace', and in Spain, where the bitter strife over social and economic reform erupted into open civil war.

Helen Graham here brings together leading historians of international renown to examine 20th-century Spain in light of Franco's dictatorship and its legacy.

Interrogating Francoism uses a three-part structure to look at the old regime, the civil war and the forging of Francoism; the nature of Franco's dictatorship; and the 'history wars' that have since taken place over his legacy. Social, political, economic and cultural historical approaches are integrated throughout and 'top down' political analysis is incorporated along with 'bottom up' social perspectives. The book places Spain and Francoism in comparative European context and explores the relationship between the historical debates and present-day political and ideological controversies in Spain.

In part a tribute to Paul Preston, the foremost historian of contemporary Spain today, Interrogating Francoism includes an interview with Professor Preston and a comprehensive bibliography of his work, as well as extensive further readings in English. It is a crucial volume for all students of 20th-century Spain.

Out of the social and economic turmoil of Europe in the 1930s, the Popular Front emerged as the spearhead of the left's bid to stop fascism in its tracks. Fifty years on from the birth of the Popular Front this edited collection assesses the impact of the idea of bourgeois-proletarian alliance on the European left as a whole. It also examines the fate of the Popular Front governments, both in France, which remained nominally 'at peace', and in Spain, where the bitter strife over social and economic reform erupted into open civil war.

Night after night jostling crowds clamour for entry to Edinburgh's Theatre Royal with one name on their lips: the Real Mackay. But who is he? The answer leaps off the page in this meticulously researched historical novel which plunges the reader into the weird and wonderful golden era of Scottish national drama, seen through the eyes of Charles Mackay and his family. Walter Scott's favourite comedian dazzles and delights packed audiences across nineteenth-century Scotland for decades, bringing laughter to thousands, including the king. But behind his hilarious stage antics is a man grieving for the women he loses, all of them dying tragically young - his mother, his wife, his daughter. In the grip of unstoppable momentum, his extraordinary popularity casting long shadows over those he loves, will he be forced to choose between fame and family?

Helen Graham here brings together leading historians of international renown to examine 20th-century Spain in light of Franco's dictatorship and its legacy.

Interrogating Francoism uses a three-part structure to look at the old regime, the civil war and the forging of Francoism; the nature of Franco's dictatorship; and the 'history wars' that have since taken place over his legacy. Social, political, economic and cultural historical approaches are integrated throughout and 'top down' political analysis is incorporated along with 'bottom up' social perspectives. The book places Spain and Francoism in comparative European context and explores the relationship between the historical debates and present-day political and ideological controversies in Spain.

In part a tribute to Paul Preston, the foremost historian of contemporary Spain today, Interrogating Francoism includes an interview with Professor Preston and a comprehensive bibliography of his work, as well as extensive further readings in English. It is a crucial volume for all students of 20th-century Spain.

In Spain today the civil war remains 'the past that will not pass away'. The long shadow of the Second World War is now also bringing back centre frame its most disquieting aspects, revealing to a broader public the stark truth already known by specialist historians -- that in Spain, as in the many other internecine wars soon to convulse Europe, war was waged predominantly upon civilians -- millions were killed not by invaders and strangers, but by their own compatriots, including their own neighbours. Across the continent, Hitler's war of territorial expansion after 1938 would detonate a myriad 'irregular wars', of culture as well as of politics, which took on a 'cleansing' intransigence as those driving them sought to make 'homogeneous' communities, whether ethnic, political or religious. So much of this was prefigured with primal intensity in Spain in 1936, where, on 17-18 July, a group of army officers rebelled against the socially-reforming Republic. Saved from almost certain failure by Nazi and Fascist military intervention, and by a British inaction amounting to complicity, these army rebels unleashed a conflict in which civilians became the targets of mass killing. The new military authorities authorised and presided over an extermination of those sectors associated with Republican change -- especially those who symbolised cultural change and thus posed a threat to old ways of being and thinking: progressive teachers, self-educated workers, 'new' women. In the Republican zone, resistance to the coup also led to the murder of civilians. This extrajudicial and communal killing in both zones would fundamentally make new political and cultural meanings that changed Spain's political landscape forever. Helen Graham explores the origins, nature and long-term consequences of this exterminatory war in Spain, charting the resonant forms of political, social and cultural resistance to it and the memory/legacy these have left behind in Europe and beyond. Not least is our growing sense of the enormity of what, in greater European terms, the Republican war effort resisted: Nazi adventurism, and the continent-wide wars of ethnic and political 'purification' it would unleash.

The author presents perspectives on healing of ancient Eastern and Western cultures.'

- Drug Link

All In all, Complementary Therapies in Context is a good resource book about the various non-traditional medical interventions, some over 4,000 years old.'

-Psychiatric Services

This is a detailed and comprehensive reference text for people wanting extensive background knowledge of complementary therapies and the background to their development. It also includes interesting sections on the complex relationship between eastern and western medicine; and how both have developed and progressed within the very recent past. It would be an invaluable text for a student writing a paper or a therapist looking to research further into potential areas for OT involvement.'

OTPLD Newsletter

This book provides a sophisticated, evidence-based argument for greater integration of complementary therapies in the NHS. A review of modern and ancient forms of healing reveal the inter-dependence of pysche and soma underlying eastern and western healing philosophies throughout history. Western physics has come to see the truth known to ancient mythologies that time and energy are interdependent therapies based on time-related stress, for example, hypnosis, meditation and relaxation, also mobilise healing energy, while energy'-based therapies, for example, homeopathy and acupuncture, also change perception of time. Modification of either of these factors has an effect on matter, or physical being, as these are all, inextricably inter-related.'

OpenMind

This book provides a good all-round introduction to ancient, modern, eastern and western perspectives on healing respectively. The author shows links and similarities where they exist, giving a useful synthesis for all students wanting to know where and how the different traditions evolved can be seen to fit into the larger picture. The classification of therapeutic interventions as being those of either time or energy is also a useful one. On time there is a good outline of the different schools of meditation, hypnosis and relaxation, including autogenic training and other developments. In-depth references to the debates surrounding different approaches give useful ammunition' for those wishing to prove the validity of these interventions. The chapter on visualisation is especially clear and inspiring. On energy, there is an outline of the chakras, as well as the story of the attempt to measure a biofield - including Kirlian photography. Radionics, colour and sound healing are among the other approaches covered. - This book may go a long way in convincing a diehard sceptic that serious consideration needs to be given to mind-body approaches and the new paradigm of health. For those already working with this approach to healing, the book is a very useful reference tool and provides the background with which to move forward.'

- Holistic Health

In this thoroughly revised, expanded and updated edition of the successful Time, Energy and the Psychology of Healing, Helen Graham examines perspectives on and approaches to healing from all over the world. She divides treatments into timely interventions' and energy medicine'. Timely interventions include biofeedback, hypnosis and meditation, which modify the individual's relationship to time and enable access to the unconscious. Energy medicine - acupuncture, homeopathy, psychosomatic treatments and psychoenergetic treatments - is concerned with the mobilization and balancing of the subtle energies in and around the individual.

Helen Graham's study also embraces shamanism, mysticism, ancient Egyptian and Greek medicine, Buddhism, Taoism, Chinese, Indian and Japanese medicine, yoga, Galenism, and the divorce of psychology and medicine. She argues that these so-called alternative' therapies should be used in conjunction with conventional Western medical techniques.

In Spain today the civil war remains 'the past that will not pass away'. The long shadow of the Second World War is now also bringing back centre frame its most disquieting aspects, revealing to a broader public the stark truth already known by specialist historians -- that in Spain, as in the many other internecine wars soon to convulse Europe, war was waged predominantly upon civilians -- millions were killed not by invaders and strangers, but by their own compatriots, including their own neighbours. Across the continent, Hitler's war of territorial expansion after 1938 would detonate a myriad 'irregular wars', of culture as well as of politics, which took on a 'cleansing' intransigence as those driving them sought to make 'homogeneous' communities, whether ethnic, political or religious. So much of this was prefigured with primal intensity in Spain in 1936, where, on 17-18 July, a group of army officers rebelled against the socially-reforming Republic. Saved from almost certain failure by Nazi and Fascist military intervention, and by a British inaction amounting to complicity, these army rebels unleashed a conflict in which civilians became the targets of mass killing. The new military authorities authorised and presided over an extermination of those sectors associated with Republican change -- especially those who symbolised cultural change and thus posed a threat to old ways of being and thinking: progressive teachers, self-educated workers, 'new' women. In the Republican zone, resistance to the coup also led to the murder of civilians. This extrajudicial and communal killing in both zones would fundamentally make new political and cultural meanings that changed Spain's political landscape forever. Helen Graham explores the origins, nature and long-term consequences of this exterminatory war in Spain, charting the resonant forms of political, social and cultural resistance to it and the memory/legacy these have left behind in Europe and beyond. Not least is our growing sense of the enormity of what, in greater European terms, the Republican war effort resisted: Nazi adventurism, and the continent-wide wars of ethnic and political 'purification' it would unleash.

This new analysis of the forces of the Spanish Leftist movement during the Civil War of 1936-9 makes two crucial propositions. It claims that the wartime responses and limitations of the movement can be understood only in relationship to its pre-war experiences, world views, organizational structures and the wider cultural context. It also asserts that the most significant influence on the evolution of the Republic between 1936 and 1939 was the war itself.

This book recovers the lost history of Spanish socialism during the turbulent years of the Civil War (1936-39). Just as the energy of the socialist movement had sustained the pre-war Second Republic as an experiment in reform, so too it underwrote the Republican war effort in the crucial years of the conflict which would determine Spain's long-term future. Leading Socialist Party (PSOE) cadres formed the bedrock of the government, while thousands of Party and union militants helped bear the tremendous weight of the war effort. The role of the PSOE in the construction of Republican political unity during the Civil War was pivotal. Yet, paradoxically, previous accounts of wartime Republican politics have virtually written the PSOE out of the script by concentrating exclusively on the fierce ideological dispute between anarchists and communists. But the key issues of revolution and State power marked all the forces in Republican Spain, none more so than the Socialist movement. As the traditional party of the working class and the only mass party in Spain as late as 1931, PSOE militants were to be found on both sides of the revolutionary/reformist divide which split fatally the Republican forces during the Civil War. The PSOE's disintegration was a function of that of the Republic itself; but the reverse was no less true. The book investigates the responses of organised socialism to the complex issues raised by the conflict, as it charts the PSOE's devastating experience of political power and desperate crisis in a war it could not win.