"Thirty years later, the Spanish Civil War still excites furious polemic and defies synthesis. 

The revolt of old Spain in the form of General Francisco Franco against the Republic in July, 1936, and how that rebellion became the dress rehearsal for World War II, is the dramatic focus of this spirited, well-balanced book...

a clear but not simplistic introduction to a conflict where many of the lines of modern ideology were drawn.

"It plunges straight into the melee of war and isms, into a Spain exploding with revolutionary fervor after two centuries of demoralized lethargy. 

Goldston depicts the legendary Spanish pride and militant conviction in this bitter class war of great landlords, Church and Army against laborers and workers....

"To Franco's Nationalists, Hitler and Mussolini sent men, weapons and advisers. 

Stalin did the same for the Republicans, and organized volunteers in the famous International Brigades. 

The British and French appeased the Fascist dictators, the U.S. stood strictly aloof, and an American company ran the telephone system, impartially. 

It was a savage, holy war of atrocities, Guernicas, and over 100,000 civilians executed. 

By the end, in April, 1939, the Republic was exhausted, a victim of its too-sudden and ill-timed political freedom-and the world settled down to a more traditional war."