The Republic Besieged

This book is a compilation of several articles about the Spanish Civil War by different authors each one dealing with a matter.

The birth of the Second Spanish Republic in April 1931 ushered in a period of possible secularisation to Spain. Liberals welcomed legal changes, while conservatives feared the special 'privileges' they enjoyed would end. The Catholic Church remained a central focus of left-wing antagonism and right-wing allegiances, and conflicts surrounding the future of religion grew severe. While members of the Spanish Catholic hierarchy had clearly supported the right and disdained the left, the actions and opinions of the Vatican and its hierarchy stationed in Spain were much more nuanced. Similarly, when conservative military action plunged Spain into a Civil War in July 1936, the majority of the Spanish Catholic hierarchy openly supported their victory, but the highest levels of the Vatican remained silent. This book explores the unique position and specialised reactions of the Vatican concerning the Second Republic and Civil War. For the Holy See, the conflict in Spain was not an isolated event at the edge of the continent, but part of a larger narrative of ideological and political tension swirling across Europe. Any public statement by the Vatican concerning the Spanish Republic or Civil War could be misconstrued as support for one side or another, and threaten the Church. True, the Vatican often remained silent -- and some have suggested this supports the conclusion that the Church worked for Franco -- but by accessing previously unavailable sources directly from the Vatican, this book can help to clarify the difficult options that awaited the Holy See during this disastrous period. Similarly, this book works to highlight the fact that the Catholic Church was not some monolithic entity, but men like Pope Pius XI and Secretary of State Pacelli had their own understandings of spirituality and politics.

This book is a comprehensive 2002 analysis of the Spanish left during the civil war of 1936-9.

Until the dramatic fall of Communist regimes in the East placed the possibility of revolution on the agenda once again, sudden and decisive political change had appeared a largely anachronistic phenomenon in Europe. Looking back over the twentieth century, it is plausible to argue that the twentieth, rather than the nineteenth, has been the 'most revolutionary of centuries'. In this volume, leading specialists from a variety of disciplines examine the changing and conflicting meanings of revolution in modern and contemporary Europe. Contributions include both broad essays on the global and historical context of European revolution and specific case studies reinterpreting a variety of revolutionary experiences.

An intellectual who did not like intellectuals, a socialist who did not trust the state, a liberal who was against free markets, a Protestant who believed in religion but not in God, a fierce opponent of nationalism who defined Englishness for a generation. Aside from being one of the greatest political essayists in the English language and author of two of the most famous books in twentieth century literature, George Orwell was a man of profound contradictions. George Orwell:English Rebel takes us through the many twists and turns of Orwell's life and thought, from precocious, public school satirist at Eton and imperial policeman in Burma, through his early years as a rather dour documentary writer, and his formative experiences as a volunteer soldier in the Spanish Civil War. Robert Colls traces, in particular, Orwell's complex relationship with his country, from the alienated intellectual of the mid-1930s through a gradual reconciliation, to the exhilarating peaks of his wartime writing. He explores the mistakes and contradictions, the lucky escapes and near misses, and what they tell us about Orwell as man and author.

The greatest Chinese novel of the twentieth century, Fortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy, and middle-class Chinese society in the Republican era. Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, our hapless hero Fang Hung-chien (á la Emma Bovary), with no particular goal in life and with a bogus degree from a fake American university in hand, returns home to Shanghai. On the French liner home, he meets two Chinese beauties, Miss Su and Miss Pao. Qian writes, "With Miss Pao it wasn't a matter of heart or soul. She hadn't any change of heart, since she didn't have a heart." In a sort of painful comedy, Fang obtains a teaching post at a newly established university where the effete pseudo-intellectuals he encounters in academia become the butt of Qian's merciless satire. Soon Fang is trapped into a marriage of Nabokovian proportions of distress and absurdity. Recalling Fielding's Tom Jones in its farcical litany of misadventures and Flaubert's "style indirect libre," Fortress Besieged is its own unique feast of delights.

A new novel from a Spanish literary star about the arrival of feral children to a tropical city in Argentina, and the quest to stop them from pulling the place into chaos.

"Helen Graham highlights the domestic and international context of the Spanish Civil War, and reveals its origins in the political and cultural anxieties provoked by the rapid modernization of Europe. Using personal narratives, she combines a powerfully human account of the war an its aftermath with a disturbing ethical enquiry into its legacy for the 21st century."--BOOK JACKET.