Beevor is not my favorite historian. His style is just too dry and superficial for my tastes. I did appreciate this book though, both for its scope and insights. No doubt it helped that I knew next to nothing about the Spanish Civil War going into this, so the entire book seemed novel. If you want a basic book which lays out the story of Spain in the 30's, this is a good place to start.

Good overview of the Spanish Civil War. Covers the roots of the conflict, the military history of the conflict, and the political struggles that went on within the two warring sides.

The Battle for Spain was a challenging book to read, Beevor peppered it with a lot of detail about the numerous battles that took place in the Spanish civil war and the personalities involved. However, it was a rewarding book to read as I have read very little on the subject and so I learnt a lot, it was really shadow boxing for WWII with the Nazis and Mussolini's forces backing Franco and the Soviets backing the Communists in the Republican movement. I see parallels between the Spanish and Irish civil wars, they split families and communities apart and the wounds go deep and its a subject rarely spoken about in each country. It also showed how inept the British government were under Neville Chamberlain with such a lame response to the tragic human loss in Spain. It's also a country I am familiar with, haven visited there several times and I will now see it through a slightly different lens.

Rather military-oriented. Clear sympathy for the Republican cause. Very detailed, but synthesis is missing.

This was a great history of the Spanish Civil War and a great introduction for a novice. Until reading this, everything that I knew about the conflict came from Orwell and Hemingway, and they were a little biased.

I will let Neruda explain what the book is about:

I'm Explaining a Few Things

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics ?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?'

I’ll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks and trees.

From there you could look out
Over Castille’s dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raúl?
Eh, Rafael?
Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
where the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?

Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Argüelles with its statue
Like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down to the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings -
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
Bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
Bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:

from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn’t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!

2.5-3. Improves later but the right wing bias in the first chapters is infuriating