STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
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Orwell got it wrong
JOHN GREEN recommends an excellent survey of the involvement of the British state, and British volunteers, in the Spanish Civil War
SKEWED VIEW: George Orwell at the BBC, 1940; and anarchists’ demonstration in Barcelona between 1936-37
CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity
The bard mourns the loss of comrades and troubadours, and looks for consolation with Black Country Jess
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, Parthenope, Where Dragons Live and Thunderbolts* reviewed by MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE
Perfidious Albion: Britain and the Spanish Civil War
by Paul Preston
The Clapton Press, £14.99
THIS new collection of essays by Paul Preston, the renowned historian of modern Spain, is very welcome. It is the perfect book for anyone seeking a dispassionate and scholarly introduction to the Spanish Civil War.
Today, right-wing politicians like David Cameron and his ilk again are invoking the spectre of appeasement which characterised Britain’s position on Spanish Civil War and gave Hitler the green light to invade Poland in 1939, but this time around as an argument for continuing to fuel the war in Ukraine by demonising Russia as the new Nazis. Never mind that it was precisely Cameron’s party forerunners who were the historical appeasers of fascism then, hoping to drive Hitler to invade Russia. Plus ça change!
Preston’s collection of essays here are timely in their recalling of that history. The first part focuses on the hypocrisy of British foreign policy towards Spain and which was instrumental in helping Franco defeat the Republic. And it was the Conservative Party, imbued with its hatred and fear of communism and “Russian barbarism” which took the lead then as now.
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