The Spanish Civil War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish Civil War which was a defining war of the twentieth century. It was a brutal conflict that polarised Spain, pitting the Left against the Right, the anti-clericals against the Church, the unions against the landed classes and the Republicans against the Monarchists. It was a bloody war which saw, in the space of just three years, the murder and execution of 350,000 people. It was also a conflict which soon became internationalised, becoming a battleground for the forces of Fascism and Communism as Europe itself geared up for war.But what were the roots of the Spanish Civil War? To what extent did Franco prosecute the war as a religious crusade? How did Franco institutionalise his victory after the war? And has Spain fully come to terms with its past?

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website (UK only)
→ Or listen on: Apple Podcasts

Guests

• Paul Preston No other episodes
  Principe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History at the London School of Economics
• Helen Graham No other episodes
  Professor of Spanish History at Royal Holloway, University of London
• Dr Mary Vincent 4 episodes
  Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at Sheffield University

Related episodes

• The Thirty Years War
  
  6 Dec, 2018 940 History of Europe
• Muslim Spain
  
  21 Nov, 2002 940 History of Europe
• Picasso’s Guernica
  
  2 Nov, 2017 750 Painting
• The Spanish Inquisition
  
  22 Jun, 2006 270 History of Christianity
• The Art of War
  
  12 Jun, 2003 350 Public administration and military science
• New Wars
  
  13 Apr, 2000 350 Public administration and military science
• The Mexican Revolution
  
  20 Jan, 2011 970 History of North America
• Lorca
  
  4 Jul, 2019 860 Spanish, Portuguese, Galician literatures
• 1848: Year of Revolution
  
  19 Jan, 2012 940 History of Europe
• The Trial of Charles I
  
  4 Jun, 2009 940 History of Europe

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: p00548wn

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548wn

Auto-category: 946.081 (History of Spain: Civil War, 1936-1939)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, the Spanish Civil War was a defining war of the 20th century.