Francisco Franco Book Reviews

Francisco Franco by Joaquin Arraras, Book Summary

Francisco Franco: The Times and the Man, is the English translation of Dr. Joaquin Arrara´s’ biography of Francisco Franco Bahamonde, the Spanish general and politician who ruled over Spain as a military dictator from 1939, after the nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, until his death in 1975—a period commonly known as Francoist Spain in Spanish history.

Born in 1892 in El Ferrol, Spain, Franco was a career soldier who rose through the ranks until the mid-1930s. When the social and economic structure of Spain began to crumble, he joined the growing right-leaning rebel movement. He soon led an uprising against the leftist Republican government and took control of Spain following the bloody Spanish Civil War (1936-39) when, with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, his Nationalist forces overthrew the democratically elected Second Republic. Franco then presided over a brutal military dictatorship, persecuting political opponents, repressing the culture and language of Spain’s Basque and Catalan regions, and censuring the media. He died in Madrid in 1975, as Spain transitioned to a democracy.

“It is with Franco, then, that [Arrarás] is concerned, with his character, his early upbringing, his entrance into the army, his thrilling adventures, his dramatic military career that made him through merit alone a captain at the age of twenty and Europe’s youngest general at thirty-two. We next find him, on his return home, commissioned to establish the Spanish West Point, immediately destroyed by the new government. Quickly after this there follow the world-stirring events that now are history.[…]

“Fortunately the author’s work, in its transformation from Spanish into English, has lost none of its freshness and flavor. The velvet is still on the fruit. We have apparent here the same journalistic verve, the same vividness of narration, the same colorful descriptions and sharp-edged statement of facts…”

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Francisco Franco (Joaquin Arraras,) Book Reviews 2024

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