Paul Preston | |
|---|---|
 Preston in 2004 | |
| Born | 21 June 1946 Liverpool, England |
| Spouse | Gabriella |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History |
| Institutions | London School of Economics |
Sir Paul Preston CBE (born 21 July 1946) is an English historian and Hispanist, biographer of Francisco Franco, and specialist in Spanish history, in particular the Spanish Civil War, which he has studied for more than 50 years. He is the winner of multiple awards for his books on the Spanish Civil War. [1]
Preston was born in 1946 in Liverpool. Preston said in an interview that he has sympathy for the Second Spanish Republic: "I came from a fairly left-wing family. You could not really be from working-class Liverpool and not be left-wing. Emotionally, in my feeling for the Republic I think there is an element of indignation about the Republic's defeat, solidarity with the losing side. Maybe that's why I support Everton, although Everton wasn't the losing side in my day." [2]
Preston studied for his undergraduate degree at Oriel College, Oxford. He then gained an MA in European Studies at the University of Reading. He moved back to Oriel College to gain his DPhil. [3]
From 1991 to 2020 Preston taught at the London School of Economics, where he was Príncipe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish Studies and the founding director of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies.
He is a frequent visitor to Spain, where his work appears in Spanish and Catalan. He speaks both languages. [4]
He has a wife, Gabriella, to whom he dedicated The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. [5]
"I try to be honest, even if the right-wing press paints me as an amateur and a liar." (2021) [6]
Preston has produced a biography of Franco (Basic Books, 1994). He has also published a biography of King Juan Carlos I (2003). Recent books include We Saw Spain Die, on the subject of foreign correspondents who reported on the Spanish Civil War and Perfidious Albion: Britain and the Spanish Civil War, a collection of essays exploring "the hypocrisy of British foreign policy towards the Spanish Republic, in contrast to the selfless contribution of medical personnel from across the globe, including many doctors and nurses from Britain, Ireland and Commonwealth countries, and assessing the influence of prominent ‘writer-historians’ including George Orwell and Herbert Southworth." [7]
In 2012 he published the English edition of the Spanish Holocaust. [8] This book represents a challenge to the pact of forgetting, [9] examining the many deaths and atrocities associated with the Spanish Civil War, and following the Francoist repression into the early 1950s. [10]
The book was criticised by the historian Stanley Payne; while Payne did praise Preston for his depth and breadth of research into atrocities in and after the war, he criticised Preston for bias when it came to Republican atrocities. Payne argues that Franco's policy was to simply eliminate the leaders and main activists of the Republicans while letting most of the rank and file go free. [11]
At the same time the book received praise among academics and journalists, with Giles Tremlett writing in the Guardian: "Preston provides facts, figures and harrowing descriptions in the first full and proper attempt to explain the horror. He does not shy away from strong words – 'holocaust' is deliberately chosen to describe the extent of cold-blooded killing [...] because its resonances with systematic murder should be evoked in the Spanish case, as they are in those of Germany or Russia".“ [12]
In 2023, he published Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain, in which he examined the conspiracy theories and antisemitism behind the rise of Francoism. [13] [14] [15] The book included profiles of six figures within the Francoist camp: Emilio Mola, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Mauricio Carlavilla, Juan Tusquets Terrats, José María Pemán, and Gonzalo de Aguilera Munro. [16]
Robert Low of The Jewish Chronicle reviewed the book positively, saying that it "shows how fake news is certainly not an invention of the 21st century, and that its consequences can be far-reaching and frequently lethal." [17]
Lluís Companys i Jover was a Catalan politician who served as president of Catalonia from 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War.
Straperlo was a scheme which originated in the Netherlands in the 1930s and was then introduced in Spain. In essence it was a fraudulent roulette which could be controlled electrically with the push of a button. The ensuing scandal was one of the several causes of the fall of the Republican government and the polarization of the parliament, which finally led to the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
Enric Valor i Vives was a Valencian narrator and grammarian who made one of the most important contributions to the re-collection and recovery of Valencian lexicography and its standardization in the Valencian Country, Spain.
The Spanish Republic, commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic, was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII. It was dissolved on 1 April 1939 after surrendering in the Spanish Civil War to the Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco.
Ricardo Luis Lorenzetti is an Argentine judge graduated from the National University of the Littoral, Argentina, with a long national and international career. He used to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Argentina (2007–2018), proposed by President Néstor Kirchner and approved by the Senate, assuming his position on December 12, 2004, covering the vacancy caused by the resignation of Justice Adolfo Vázquez. On November 7, 2006, he was appointed Chief Justice, officiated as of January 1, 2007. Currently, he is one of the five Justices of the Supreme Court. He was President of the Commission for the preparation of the Parliamentary Act to reform, update and unify the Civil and Commercial Codes of the Argentine Nation, Presidential Decree 191/2011.
The War in the North was the campaign of the Spanish Civil War in which the Nationalist forces defeated and occupied the parts of northern Spain that had remained loyal to the Republican government.
In the history of Spain, the White Terror describes the political repression, including executions and rapes, which were carried out by the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), as well as during the following years of the regime of General Francisco Franco. In the 1936–1975 period, Francoist Spain had many officially designated enemies: Loyalists to the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939), Liberals, socialists of different stripes, Protestants, intellectuals, homosexuals, Freemasons, Romanis, Jews, blacks, immigrants, Basque, Catalan, Andalusian and Galician nationalists.
The campaign of Gipuzkoa was part of the Spanish Civil War, where the Nationalist Army conquered the northern province of Gipuzkoa, held by the Republic.
The Battle of Irún was the critical battle of the Campaign of Gipuzkoa prior to the War in the North, during the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalist Army, under Alfonso Beorlegui, captured the city of Irún cutting off the northern provinces of Gipuzkoa, Biscay, Santander, and Asturias from their source of arms and support in France.
Unión Militar Española was a pro-fascist secret society of officers of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces involved in a conspiracy to bring about the restoration of the monarchy during the 1930s. The majority of members of this organization became part of the nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Antonio Vallejo-Nájera (1889–1960) was a Spanish psychiatrist. He was interested in eugenics and proposed a link between Marxism and intellectual disability. His ideas led to the thefts of many Spanish newborns and young children from their left-wing parents. As many as 30,000 children were taken from socialist families and placed with fascist families. Vallejo-Nájera was rewarded for his assistance during the Spanish Civil War and he became a leading figure in Spanish psychiatry.
The Convoy de la Victoria was a Spanish naval battle on 5 August 1936 in the Strait of Gibraltar during the Spanish Civil War, between the escort of a Nationalist convoy and the Republican Navy destroyer Alcalá Galiano.
Gonzalo de Aguilera Munro, 11th Conde de Alba de Yeltes was a Spanish aristocrat and military officer who served with the nationalist faction of the Spanish Army during the Spanish Civil War. He served as the press officer for General Francisco Franco and General Emilio Mola. He inherited the title of El XI Conde de Alba de Yeltes in 1919.
Gonzalo Queipo de Llano y Sierra was a Spanish Army general. He distinguished himself quickly in his career, fighting in Cuba and Morocco, later becoming outspoken about military and political figures which led to his imprisonment, removal from posts and involvement in plots against Spanish governments. He was a Nationalist military leader during the Spanish Civil War under Francisco Franco, gaining the soubriquet "El general de la radio" ["radio" or "broadcasting general" in English media] for his threats and explicitness on air. Under his control of southern Spain, tens of thousands of Spaniards perished as part of the Nationalists' White Terror. In his post-war roles he was effectively sidelined by Franco.
The Jewish Archive was the name given to a collection of documents compiled by the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain during the Second World War. In accordance with instructions of the Directorate of General Security the provincial governors of Spain assembled records of all Jews who lived in Spain, whether or not they were Spanish. Jorge Martínez Reverte has suggested that the resulting list, which recorded 6,000 Jews living in Spain, was handed to Heinrich Himmler's SS in 1941 and was included in Adolf Eichmann's Jewish Population Census, tabled at the Wannsee Conference, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, in January 1942.
Jesús Martín-Barbero was a Spanish-Colombian communication scientist.
The Revolution of 1934, also known as the Revolution of October 1934 or the Revolutionary General Strike of 1934, was a revolutionary strike movement that took place between 5 and 19 October 1934, during the black biennium of the Second Spanish Republic. The revolts were triggered by the entry of the conservative Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) into the Spanish government. Most of the events occurred in Catalonia and Asturias and were supported by many Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and General Union of Workers (UGT) members, notably Largo Caballero, as well as members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Historians have argued that the incident sharpened antagonism between the political Right and Left in Spain and was part of the reason for the later Spanish Civil War. Around 2,000 people were killed during the uprising, which was repressed by Spanish government forces.
Miguel Herrero y Rodríguez de Miñón is a Spanish jurist and politician. A member of the Union of the Democratic Centre until 1982, then of People's Alliance and its successor, the People's Party, he is one of the "Fathers of the Constitution", the seven legislators who participating in the draft of the Spanish constitutional text passed in 1978.
Andrés Saliquet Zumeta, Marquis of Saliquet was a Spanish soldier who participated in the failed military coup against the Second Republic, which gave rise to the Spanish Civil War. During the war he took charge of the Army of the center, a unit that contained troops of the Nationalist faction from the Tagus River to Madrid, Guadarrama and the Universal Mountains.
The Universidad Nacional del Altiplano de Puno is a public university located in the city of Puno, Peru.
Informational notes
Citations
Media related to Paul Preston at Wikimedia Commons
Spanish Wikiquote has quotations related to: Paul Preston 