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Architects of Terror

Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain
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Brief Description
A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR From the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy, and anti-Semitism were used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship... Read More
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A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR

From the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy and anti-Semitism was used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship built on violence and persecution.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR

From the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy, and anti-Semitism were used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship built on violence and persecution.

It is the previously untold story of how antisemitic beliefs were weaponised to justify and propagate the Franco overthrow of liberal Spain.

The Spanish military coup of 1936 was launched to overturn the social and economic reforms of the democratic Second Republic, and its educational and cultural challenges to the established order. The consequent civil war was fought in the interests of the landowners, industrialists, bankers, clerics, and army officers whose privileges were threatened.

However, a central justification for a war that took the lives of around 500,000 Spaniards was that it was being fought to combat an alleged scheme for world domination by a non-existent ‘Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy’. Despite the fact that Spain had only a tiny minority of Jews and Freemasons, Franco and his inner circle were ardent believers in this fabricated conspiracy and spread the notion that the survival of Catholic Spain, as well as the establishment's economic interests, required the total annihilation of Jews and Freemasons.

Architects of Terror is the story of how fake news, mendacity, corruption, and nostalgia for lost empire generated violence and hatred. The book presents vivid portraits of the key ideologues who propagated the myth of the Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy and of the military figures who implemented the atrocities that it justified.

Among the convictions shared by these individuals was their belief in the idea that Freemasonry was responsible for Spain’s loss of empire and in the factual veracity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious fiction about the global domination of the Jews.

This is a history that reverberates in our own political moment.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780008522155

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 February 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: William Collins

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 33.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 340g

Pages: 464

About the Author

Paul Preston is Príncipe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History and Director of the Cañada Blanch Centre of Contemporary Spanish Studies at the LSE. He was lecturer at the University of Reading then successively lecturer in, reader in and Professor of History at Queen Mary College, University of London. In 2006 he was awarded the International Ramon Llull Prize by the Catalan Government. Among his many works are The Triumph of Democracy in Spain (1986), Franco: A Biography (1993), A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War (1996), Comrades (1999), Doves of War: Four Women in Spain (2002), Juan Carlos (2004) and The Spanish Civil War (2006). He was decorated by Spanish King Juan Carlos a ‘Comendador de la Orden de Mérito Civil’ and in 2007, the ‘Gran Cruz de la Orden de Isabel la Católica’. In 2000 he was awarded a CBE.

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