FRANCO

by Alan Lloyd ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1969

A biographical popsicle...which waters down the story of Franco's career, compresses it, and colors it with a narrative presentation for those unwilling to plow through Hills' or Crozier's studies (1967 and 1968). The latter weren't so demanding as to require a popularized version, and Lloyd, though a bit more anti-Franco in tone, presrves their emphases -- on Franco's prudent, anti-fanatical character, his early efforts to co-opt and subdue the Spanish fascists, his cleverness in staying out of World War II belligerencies, and his pleasure at the Allies' postwar embrace of his regime and his anti-Communist slogans. ""Narrative"" style means an anecdotal and pedestrian approach, in this case, a journalistic rather than seriously analytic perspective -- despite Lloyd's authorship of The Spanish Centuries (1968), he rests content with specious ""paradoxes"" rather than the sociological probes which would easily resolve them (e.g. the ""irony"" of better-off Spaniards pressing hardest for reform). Light reading, then -- it's hard to say for whom, given the above-mentioned accessibility of those more extensive recent studies.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION