The Spanish Civil War was published by Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1961, and it established Hugh Thomas (later Lord Thomas of Swynnerton) as one of the most accomplished narrative historians of his generation. He was twenty-nine years old when the book appeared, and its combination of exhaustive research, balanced judgment, and literary power remains unsurpassed in the field.
Thomas tells the story of the war from its origins in the political instability of the Second Republic through the military uprising of July 1936, the three years of conflict, and Franco’s final victory in 1939. He treats both sides with a fairness that initially angered partisans on both left and right — Republicans objected to his documentation of their internal divisions and atrocities, while Francoists objected to his refusal to accept their narrative of a crusade against communism.
The book’s achievement is to hold the entire conflict in view simultaneously: the military campaigns, the political intrigues, the international dimensions (German and Italian intervention, Soviet involvement, the Non-Intervention Committee’s hypocrisy), the social revolution in Republican Spain, the terror on both sides, and the human cost of the whole catastrophe. Thomas writes with a novelist’s eye for character and scene: his portraits of the war’s principal figures (Franco, Largo Caballero, Negrín, the anarchist leaders) are vivid and persuasive.
The book has been continuously revised and expanded through successive editions (1965, 1977, 2001), each incorporating new research and newly available sources. It remains the starting point for any English-language study of the conflict.
Collecting The Spanish Civil War
First edition (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1961): Cloth binding, dust jacket. A major work of twentieth-century historiography.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $100–$400
- Without jacket: $20–$50
- Revised editions (1977, 2001): $15–$40