The Spanish Labyrinth

The Spanish Labyrinth, first published in 1943, has become the classic account of the background to the Spanish Civil War.

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Gerald Brenan's The Spanish Labyrinth has become the classic account of the background to the Spanish Civil War. Written during and immediately after the Civil War, this book has all the vividness of the author's experience. It represents a struggle to see the issues in Spanish politics objectively, whilst bearing witness to the deep involvement which is the only possible source of much of this richly detailed account. As a literary figure on the fringe of the Bloomsbury group, Gerald Brenan lends to this narrative an engaging personal style that has become familiar to many thousands of readers over the decades since it was first published.

In few places, contends Professor Arango, do illusions obscure reality as they do in Spain. The Spaniard as well as the foreigner has believed and sustained the myths; the scholar as well as the poet. For the Spaniard, myth became the substitute for action in a world in which Spain was increasingly a nonparticipant. It replaced the reality of Spain