Eberhard/Hannover

the Spanish Labyrinth (full title: The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Spanish Civil War) by Gerald Brenan, is a classic account of Spain’s social, economic and political history as a background to the Spanish Civil War.

First published in 1943, it has since then run to several reprints and is, together with works by noted hispanists such as Paul Preston, Raymond Carr and Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Labyrinth is background reading for studies of Spain and its history.

The 1993 edition has an extensive foreword by Raymond Carr stating that the book was acclaimed “as one of the most brilliant political and social studies in many years” by the Chicago Sunday Tribune, and “the essence of Spain” by the Manchester Guardian. Carr himself called the book “a revelation to my generation” and went on to add “What is remarkable about Brenan’s account of the Second Republic of 1931-6” is the fairness that has enabled it to stand the test of time… his account stands out as surprisingly impartial.”

To me the book was very interesting and give me a sigh of what is the recent and not so recent history of my country, also explained what is happening just now.

There is a very good book tittle “El Laberinto Español” written by and english-spanish author “Gerald Brenan” where he explain all this evens very well, also the reasons
that why the spanish societe is so complicated. He lives in Spain many years and I think is one of the best books written about the so complicated spanish recent history and the civil war.

Sorry, I write too much.

Thanks for yr concern, and sorry for my late reply I had ploblems with my internet conection.

That’s a mistery for me and many people too, I’m not a social scientist but my humble opinion is that Mr.Chavez is what we called “Caudillo”, a leader for the poor people many of them still have hope that things can change, and Chavez knowing very well this situation has created false hopes with social programs that don´t solve the real problems of our country but for these people who never had gotten anything it’s something (demagogia), the high price of oil helped a lot, but we have to wait because we started facing a “skinny cow” period and the situation can change in the coming months, currently the financial crisis has not impacted in Venezuela as much as Europe, Asian or the States but we have to wait.

In fact let me tell you that Chavez is not a cause of the problem, he is the consequence of near 40 years of bad politicians and bad public policies and a lot of corruption, and those politicians are now in the opposition movements, and this is another reason why Chavez is still in office and can be re-elected while the opposition be the same….

Interested to know what Francisco Javier said about Andalucía, because it seems they have the same problem there.

In Venezuela we say each people have the government they deserve, people voted for Chavez so we have the bear him…

Congratulations for Penelope, it´s a triumph for all “hispano parlantes” FELICIDADES¡¡¡

But we need to be optimist and do think that the world has changed already from what it was on the twenties, all is going faster and it is sure we’ll find another way of doing things better than before.

In the last century the way of amended things was a war, but now we have seen that way is such a big mistake and people in general are better informed than ever.
This way of talking, as we do in the blog, people from all nations with different lenguages and religions is a hope of not doing same mistakes once and again.

Fco. Javier welcome to the circle, little by little a lot of spaniards and latinos (Jose maria, julio, elcomadant, rodrigo, roberto..and much more) are meeting here, and of course I agree with you completely and it is just what you say the big problem that our marvellous Andalucia has.
You know that politicians want always to be reelected by people, and they don’t take an unpopular rule never because it shoul be the end of their command.
So for our Andalucia I don’t see any solution in future.
In fact there should be necessary to limit the period of time that a politician can be elected, being the same that other countries do as EE.UU. for instance.

Congratulations to Penelope, she has done a great work and yesterday night I was so happy when she grasped the Oscar being so emotioned.
To all people from India, congratulations too, their film was incredible and it has been made with 15 millions only. I love it.