The Spanish Civil War created a conflict for Americans who preferred that the United States remain uninvolved in foreign affairs. Despite the country's isolationist tendencies, opposition to the rise ...of fascism across Europe convinced many Americans that they had to act in support of the Spanish Republic. While much has been written about the war itself and its international volunteers, little attention has been paid to those who coordinated these relief efforts at home. American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War tells the story of the political campaigns to raise aid for the Spanish Republic as activists pushed the limits of isolationist thinking. Those concerned with Spain's fate held a range of political convictions (including anarchists, socialists, liberals, and communists) with very different understandings of what fascism was. Yet they all agreed that fascism's advance must be halted. With labor strikes, fund- raising parties, and ambulance tours, defenders of Spain in the United States sought to shift the political discussion away from isolation of Spain's elected government and toward active assistance for the faltering Republic. Examining the American political organizations affiliated with this relief effort and the political repression that resulted as many of Spain's supporters faced the early incarnations of McCarthyism's trials, Smith provides new understanding of American politics during the crucial years leading up to World War II. By also focusing on the impact the Spanish Civil War had on those of Spanish ethnicity in the United States, Smith shows how close to home the seemingly distant war really hit.
The struggle to define U.S. national identity through a political struggle in Spain
In 1938 the United States was embroiled in a vicious debate between supporters of the two sides of the Spanish ...Civil War, who sought either to lift or to retain the U.S. arms embargo on Spain. The embargo, which favored Gen. Francisco Franco’s Nationalist regime over the ousted Republican government of the Loyalists, received heavy criticism for enabling a supposedly fascist-backed takeover during a time when the Nazi party in Germany was threatening the annexation of countries across Europe. Supporters of General Franco, however, saw the resistance of the Loyalists as being spurred on by the Soviet Union, which sought to establish a communist government abroad.
Since World War II, American historians have traditionally sided with the Loyalist supporters, validating their arguments that the pro-Nationalists were un-American for backing an unpalatable dictator. In Arguing Americanism, author Michael E. Chapman examines the long-overlooked pro-Nationalist argument. Employing new archival sources, Chapman documents a small yet effective network of lobbyists—including engineer turned writer John Eoghan Kelly, publisher Ellery Sedgwick, homemaker Clare Dawes, muralist Hildreth Meière, and philanthropist Anne Morgan—who fought to promote General Franco’s Nationalist Spain and keep the embargo in place.
Arguing Americanism also goes beyond the embargo debate to examine the underlying issues that gripped 1930s America. Chapman posits that the Spanish embargo argument was never really about Spain but rather about the soul of Americanism, the definition of democracy, and who should do the defining. Pro-Loyalists wanted the pure democracy of the ballot box; pro-Nationalists favored the checks and balances of indirect democracy. By pointing to what was happening in Spain, each side tried to defend its version of Americanism against the foreign forces that threatened it. For Franco supporters, it was the spread of international Marxism, toward which they felt Roosevelt and his New Deal were too sympathetic. The pro-Nationalists intensified an argument that became a precursor to a fundamental change in American national identity—a change that would usher in the Cold War era.
Arguing Americanism will appeal to political scientists, cultural historians, and students of U.S. foreign relations.
This book presents a new history of the most important conflict in European affairs during the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War. It describes the complex origins of the conflict, the collapse of the ...Spanish Republic and the outbreak of the only mass worker revolution in the history of Western Europe. Stanley Payne explains the character of the Spanish revolution and the complex web of republican politics, while also examining the development of Franco's counter-revolutionary dictatorship. Payne gives attention to the multiple meanings and interpretations of war and examines why the conflict provoked such strong reactions at the time, and long after. The book also explains the military history of the war and its place in the history of military development, the non-intervention policy of the democracies and the role of German, Italian and Soviet intervention, concluding with an analysis of the place of the war in European affairs, in the context of twentieth-century revolutionary civil wars.
Spain and the United States both experienced extremely bloody and divisive civil wars that left social and emotional wounds, many of which still endure today. In Uncommonly Savage, award-winning ...historian Paul Escott considers the impact of internecine violence on memory and ideology, on politics, and on the process of reconciliation. He also examines debates over reparation or moral recognition, the rise of truth and reconciliation commissions, and the legal, psychological, and religious aspects of modern international law regarding amnesty.
This pioneering work-there are no other similar works on Spain and the United States-is based upon primary sources, including magazines, newspapers, public addresses, and policies of political leaders.
This groundbreaking history of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) examines, for the first time in any language, how General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist forces managed state finance and ...economic production, and mobilized support from elites and middle-class Spaniards, to achieve their eventual victory over Spanish Republicans and the revolutionary left.     The Spanish Nationalists are exceptional among counter-revolutionary movements of the twentieth century, Michael Seidman demonstrates, because they avoided the inflation and shortages of food and military supplies that stymied not only their Republican adversaries but also their counter-revolutionary counterparts—the Russian Whites and Chinese Nationalists. He documents how Franco’s highly repressive and tightly controlled regime produced food for troops and civilians; regular pay for soldiers, farmers, and factory workers; and protection of property rights for both large and small landowners. These factors, combined with the Nationalists’ pro-Catholic and anti-Jewish propaganda, reinforced solidarity in the Nationalist zone.     Seidman concludes that, unlike the victorious Spanish Nationalists, the Russian and Chinese bourgeoisie were weakened by the economic and social upheaval of the two world wars and succumbed in each case to the surging revolutionary left.
The volume addresses the study of political violence from a humanistic and democratic perspective. The chapters utilize the lens of gender, examine myths and otherness, reflect on structural hunger ...and fear, and narrate testimonials of exile abroad and in Spain. The methodologies employed are grounded in hermeneutics and discourse analysis.
This is a long-awaited translation of a definitive account of the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. Michael Alpert examines the origins, formation and performance of the Republican Army and ...sets the Spanish Civil War in its broader military context. He explores the conflicts between communists and Spanish anarchists about how the war should be fought, as well as the experience of individual conscripts, problems of food, clothing and arms, and the role of women in the new army. The book contains extensive discussion of international aspects, particularly the role of the International Brigades and of the Soviet Russian advisers. Finally, it discusses the final uprising of professional Republican officers against the Government and the almost unconditional surrender to Franco. Professor Alpert also provides detailed statistics for the military forces available to Franco and to the Republic and biographies of the key figures on both sides.
Since the late nineteenth century and especially in times of great tension in the Middle East, observers have asked whether the longstanding Arab-Jewish conflict could have been avoided. The early ...Zionists did not feel that Arab nationalism would evolve as a reaction to Jewish settlement and the pursuit of Jewish statehood; to the Zionists it seemed logical that their presence would create an atmosphere of technical and social progress and economic prosperity, which would bring such immeasurable benefits to the Palestinians that they would accept the Jewish immigrants. In reality, however, Palestinian nationalism became pervasive, resistance to the Jewish presence became violent and uncompromising, and the Palestinian Arabs revolted. The uprising of 1936-1939 brought about a major réévaluation of Zionist policy, particularly of the left-of-center and middle-of-the-road positions, strengthened the resolve of Zionsit revisionist groups to pursue a policy of military strength, and caused the disintegration of the binationalist leadership.
The politics, attitudes, and assumptions prevailing in the pre-World War I Zionist movement, according to the author, are identical to those that provide the dynamics of contemporary Israeli politics. Dr. Haim identifies the main factions of the Zionist movement, analyzing their basic assumptions and policies, their various interpretations of Palestinian Arab opposition to the Jewish state, and their different approaches to overcoming that obstacle. He deals with the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, and the subsequent realignment among the Zionists, in detail. The book provides an invaluable perspective for the events of our day in the confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians.
