by José Peirats (Author), Chris Ealham (Editor)
The CNT in the Spanish Revolution is the history of one of the most original and audacious, and arguably also the most far-reaching, of all the twentieth-century revolutions. It is the history of the giddy years of political change and hope in 1930s Spain, when the so-called 'Generation of '36', Peirats' own generation, rose up against the oppressive structures of Spanish society. It is also a history of a revolution that failed, crushed in the jaws of its enemies on both the reformist left and the reactionary right.
José Peirats' account is effectively the official CNT history of the war, passionate, partisan but, above all, intelligent. Its huge sweeping canvas covers all areas of the anarchist experience--the spontaneous militias, the revolutionary collectives, the moral dilemmas occasioned by the clash of revolutionary ideals and the stark reality of the war effort against Franco and his German Nazi and Italian Fascist allies.
This new edition is carefully indexed in a way that converts the work into a usable tool for historians and makes it much easier for the general reader to dip in with greater purpose and pleasure.
Author Biography
José Peirats joined the anarcho-syndicalist CNT at the age of 14 and became one of the great intellectuals of the Spanish anarchist movement. He is the author of Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution. Chris Ealham has spent more than 20 years researching Spain's anarchist and anarcho-syndicalists movements. He is the author of Anarchism and the City: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, 1898-1937 and Class, Culture and Conflict in Barcelona, 1898-1937.