Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain
Written by Paul Preston
Narrated by Robin Laing
()
About this audiobook
A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
From the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy and anti-Semitism was used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship built on violence and persecution.
It is the previously untold story of how antisemitic beliefs were weaponised to justify and propagate the Franco overthrow of liberal Spain.
The Spanish military coup of 1936 was launched to overturn the social and economic reforms of the democratic Second Republic, and its educational and cultural challenges to the established order. The consequent civil war was fought in the interests of the landowners, industrialists, bankers, clerics and army officers whose privileges were threatened. However, a central justification for a war that took the lives of around 500,000 Spaniards was that it was being fought to combat an alleged scheme for world domination by a non-existent ‘Jewish- Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy’. Despite the fact that Spain had only a tiny minority of Jews and Freemasons, Franco and his inner circle were ardent believers in this fabricated conspiracy and spread the notion that the survival of Catholic Spain, as well, of course, of the establishment ’ s economic interests, required the total annihilation of Jews and Freemasons.
Architects of Terror is the story of how fake news, mendacity, corruption and nostalgia for lost empire generated violence and hatred. The book presents vivid portraits of the key ideologues who propagated the myth of the Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy and of the military figures who implemented the atrocities that it justified. Among the convictions shared by these individuals was their belief in the idea that Freemasonry was responsible for Spain ’ s loss of empire and in the factual veracity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious fiction about the global domination of the Jews.
This is a history that reverberates in our own political moment
Paul Preston
Paul Preston is Principe de Asturias Professor of Iberian History at the LSE, and was head of the International History Department there for several years. He is regarded as the leading historian of twentieth-century Spain alive.
More audiobooks from Paul Preston
A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence and Social Division in Modern Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Stalinist: The Life of Santiago Carrillo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Architects of Terror
Related audiobooks
Nazism and War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMussolini and Hitler: The Forging of the Fascist Alliance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cold War Exiles and the CIA: Plotting to Free Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Odessa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sudden Courage: Youth in France Confront the Germans, 1940-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Moment of Liberation in Western Europe: Power Struggles and Rebellions, 1943-1948 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and the Origins of the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's Compromises: Coercion and Consensus in Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Culture in Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pandora's Box: A History of the First World War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Germany: A Nation in Its Time: Before, During, and After Nationalism, 1500-2000 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Fatherland: Europeans between Empire and Nation-States, 1867-1939 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBelarus: The Last European Dictatorship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmpire of Sand: How Britain Made the Middle East Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sunday Times Investigates: Reporting That Made History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inside the Nazi Ring: A Naval Attaché in Sweden, 1940-45 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler's Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ni-Go Project: The History and Legacy of Imperial Japan’s Nuclear Weapons Program during World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adventurers: The Improbable Rise of the East India Company: 1550-1650 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Disappearance of Josef Mengele: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Economic Consequences of the Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vichy France: The History of Nazi Germany's Occupation of France during World War II Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Retracing the Iron Curtain: A 3,000-Mile Journey Through the End and Afterlife of the Cold War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
European History For You
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Our Hideous Progeny: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War on the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghost Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iron, Fire and Ice: The Real History that Inspired Game of Thrones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Teutonic Knights: A Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of American Cemeteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Project MK-Ultra: The History of the CIA’s Controversial Human Experimentation Program Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler's Bunker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Templars: The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whose Middle Ages?: Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Architects of Terror
0 ratings0 reviews