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| Author | Hugh Thomas |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Spanish Civil War |
| Published | 1961 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 1096 [4th, revised ed.] |
| ISBN | 978-0-141-01161-5 |
The Spanish Civil War is a book by Hugh Thomas; it provides scholarly historiographic account of the Spanish Civil War. The work, written since 1957, was first published in 1961: simultaneously in the United Kingdom by Eyre & Spottiswoode and in the United States by Harpers'. Upon release it received rather positive reviews; it won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1962 and during the following few years was translated and published in Portugal, France, Germany, Denmark and Italy. Despite initial approving reviews, in Francoist Spain the book received unfavorable treatment and has never been published.
The work was revised and enlarged in 1965, 1977 and 2001. It was re-issued many times, the last edition during the lifetime of the author in 2012 and the last known edition in 2022. During decades it remained the most popular monograph on the war and was translated into at least 11 languages; it reportedly sold in over 1m copies around the globe. It remains quoted as a key work in bibliographical listings of present-day scholarly works on the war. It is usually acclaimed for non-biased perspective, high level of detail and lively narrative. Fairly rare critical remarks claim that the work is about storytelling rather than historical analysis, that some interpretations advanced are doubtful, and that some sources are trusted too much while other have not been consulted at all.