“Mr. Thomas has understood [the Spanish Civil War] incredibly well and has written it superbly. A full, vivid and deeply serious treatment of a great subject.”—Vincent Sheean, The New York Times Book Review A masterpiece of the historian’s art, Hugh Thomas’s The Spanish Civil War remains the best, most engrossing narrative of one of the most emblematic and misunderstood wars of the twentieth century. Revised and updated with significant new material, including new revelations about atrocities perpetrated against civilians by both sides in this epic conflict, this “definitive work on the subject” (Richard Bernstein, The New York Times) has been given a fresh face forty years after its initial publication in 1961. In brilliant, moving detail, Thomas analyzes a devastating conflict in which the hopes, dreams, and dogmas of a century exploded onto the battlefield. Like no other account, The Spanish Civil War dramatically reassembles the events that led a European nation, in a continent on the brink of world war, to divide against itself, bringing into play the machinations of Franco and Hitler, the bloodshed of Guernica, and the deeply inspiring heroics of those who rallied to the side of democracy. Communists, anarchists, monarchists, fascists, socialists, democrats -- the various forces of the Spanish Civil War composed a fabric of the twentieth century itself, and Thomas masterfully weaves the diffuse and fascinating threads of the war together in a manner that has established the book as a genuine classic of modern history. “Stands without rivals as the most balanced and comprehensive book on the subject.”—American Historical Review

Meticulously researched, God'ed? The Case for Islam as the Completion of Revelation challenges the most stalwart of theologians. Religious scholar and medical doctor Laurence B. Brown concludes MisGod'ed, his expos of the shortcomings of Judeo-Christian theology, with God'ed?, which examines the Islamic claim of Muhammad as the foretold final messenger, and the revelation he transmitted, the Qur'an, as the completion of God's revelation to humankind. Together, these two scholarly works differentiate the truth of God's guidance from the falsehoods of human corruption while offering evidence that not only suggests the need for a final, clarifying revelation, but in fact demands it. At last, we have a comprehensive guide to the three Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and a sensible roadmap by which sincere seekers can navigate their quest for religious truth.

A political biography, history of of a revolutionary era, and nonstop adventure story across three continents.

General Francisco Franco, also called the Caudillo, was the dictator of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. His life has been examined in many previous biographies. However, most of these have been traditional, linear biographies that focus on Franco’s military and political careers, neglecting the significance of who exactly Franco was for the millions of Spaniards over whom he ruled for almost forty years. In this new biography Antonio Cazorla-Sanchez looks at Franco from a fresh perspective, emphasizing the cultural and social over the political. Cazorla-Sanchez's Franco uses previously unknown archival sources to analyse how the dictator was portrayed by the propaganda machine, how the opposition tried to undermine his prestige, and what kind of opinions, rumours and myths people formed of him, and how all these changed over time. The author argues that the collective construction of Franco’s image emerged from a context of material needs, the political traumas caused by the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the complex cultural workings of a society in distress, political manipulation, and the lack of any meaningful public debate. Cazorla-Sanchez's Franco is a study of Franco’s life as experienced and understood by ordinary people; by those who loved or admired him, by those who hated or disliked him, and more generally, by those who had no option but to accommodate their existence to his rule. The book has a significance that goes well beyond Spain, as Cazorla-Sanchez explores the all-too-common experience of what it is like to live under the deep shadow cast by an always officially praised, ever present, and long lasting dictator.

In Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, people disappear, their bodies dumped in deserted city lots or jettisoned in the unforgiving desert. All too many of them are women. More or Less Dead analyzes how such violence against women has been represented in news media, books, films, photography, and art. Alice Driver argues that the various cultural reports often express anxiety or criticism about how women traverse and inhabit the geography of Ciudad Juárez and further the idea of the public female body as hypersexualized. Rather than searching for justice, the various media—art, photography, and even graffiti—often reuse victimized bodies in sensationalist, attention-grabbing ways. In order to counteract such views, local activists mark the city with graffiti and memorials that create a living memory of the violence and try to humanize the victims of these crimes. The phrase “more or less dead” was coined by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño in his novel 2666, a penetrating fictional study of Juárez. Driver explains that victims are “more or less dead” because their bodies are never found or aren’t properly identified, leaving families with an uncertainty lasting for decades—or forever. The author’s clear, precise journalistic style tackles the ethics of representing feminicide victims in Ciudad Juárez. Making a distinction between the words “femicide” (the murder of girls or women) and “feminicide” (murder as a gender-driven event), one of her interviewees says, “Women are killed for being women, and they are victims of masculine violence because they are women. It is a crime of hate against the female gender. These are crimes of power.”

Combining military, political, cultural, social, and oral history, Sebastian Balfour narrates for the first time the development of a brutalised, interventionist army that played a crucial role in the victory of the Francoists in the Spanish Civil War. Spain's new colonial venture in Morocco in the early twentieth-century turned into a bloody war against the tribes resisting the Spanish invasion of their lands. After suffering a succession of heavy military disasters against some of the most accomplished guerrillas in the world, the Spanish army turned to chemical warfare and dropped massive quantities of mustard gas on civilians. Dr Balfour exposes this previously closely guarded secret using evidence from Spanish military archives and from survivors in Morocco. He also narrates the daily life of soldiers in the war as well as the self-images and tensions among the colonial officers. After looking at the motives that drove Moroccans to resist or cooperate with Spain, the author describes the contradictory pictures among Spaniards of Moroccan collaborators and foes. Finally, he examines the Spanish colonial army's response to the Second Republic of 1931-1936 and its brutal march through Spain in the Civil War. QUOTES FROM PAUL PRESTON'S READERS REPORT: 'This is a book of very considerable significance, the work of a first rate historian working at his peak...This is the most complete and wide-ranging account to date of the Spanish involvement in Morocco and of the consequences of that involvement inside Spain itself...written with a compelling blend of elegance and immediacy...this is a major work, one of which any historian would be proud.'