This book offers an interpretation of a foreign conflict that has had a greater impact on modern British politics than any other.

This book looks at the reception of the Spanish Civil War in British popular culture, and how supporters of both sides in Britain used the rhetoric and imagery of the conflict to bolster support for their respective causes in the arena of British public opinion. Brian Shelmerdine finds that traditional notions of Spain as a country of bullfighting, bandits and flamenco were pervasive and were significant in shaping wider UK government policy towards Spain. He carefully assesses the different political perceptions of the 1930s Spanish scene, the role of the Catholic Church, the depiction of the two sides in terms of class, race and ethnicity, humanitarian appeals, and the plight of the Basques. The book is fluently written, and should make fascinating and entertaining reading for scholars of British society and culture in the twentieth century, as well as those investigating international impact of the Spanish Civil War.

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was reported by some of the most eminent journalists of the twentieth century and was the subject of reportage that still endures in public memory. However, these represent just a small fraction of the total news coverage of the war, raising the possibility that they provide a partial, even atypical, view of the international media's engagement with, and performance in, the conflict. This book provides the most extensive and detailed analysis of the reporting of the conflict ever undertaken, examining the personalities, routines, pressures and structures that shaped news coverage of the war in Britain as it unfolded. The book combines a comprehensive overview of the existing literature on the role of the news media in the conflict, with a vast amount of new evidence, gleaned from the author's detailed investigations in a range of official and media archives. Highlights include: Analysis of the strategies used by Republican and Nationalist forces to control and manage international press opinion Examination of journalists' personal experiences in Spain, and how these affected their political opinions and professional values Scrutiny of the pressures exerted by the British government on news correspondents, editors and proprietors as it sought to convince domestic and international opinion of the validity of its policy of international non-intervention in the war A systematic analysis of actual news coverage of the conflict, examining the extent to which media evaluations and interpretations of the conflict altered as events unfolded. Written in a highly accessible manner, this book will appeal to a wide readership, including students and academics working in the fields of politics, history and cultural, communication and media studies, as well as any other readers interested in the history and legacy of the Spanish Civil War.

This book draws on a mass of documentary material to provide a major reinterpretation of British labour's response to the Spanish Civil War. It challenges the view that the labour leadership ' betrayed' the Spanish Republic, and that this polarised the movement along `left' versus 'right' lines. Instead, it argues that the overriding concern of the major leaders was to defend labour's institutional interests against the political destabilisation caused by the conflict, rather than to defend Spanish democracy. Although the main advocates of this position were trade union leaders associated with the labour right such as Walter Citrine and Ernest Bevin, the book argues that their dominance reflected the centrality of the trade unions to labour movement decision-making rather than the abuse of union power to achieve political goals.