A recent occupational hazard of being an historian of modern Spain has been the expectation that you can explain what is going on in Catalonia right now. Friends and colleagues, stunned by the images of violence seen around the world last weekend, want to know where this has all come from. There have been no … Continue reading Lessons from Catalonia?
In Defence of Orwell’s ‘Bad History’
A recent article in The Guardian by the highly-regarded historian Professor Paul Preston made the case that George Orwell’s classic Spanish Civil War tract, Homage to Catalonia, was ‘bad history’. Attacks on Orwell’s text are not new – his book represents a potent challenge to the legitimacy of the Spanish Republic from one of the left’s … Continue reading In Defence of Orwell’s ‘Bad History’
