FRANCO: A Biographical History

by Brian Crozier ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 1968

Crozier agrees with Franco's most recent biographer, George Hills (p. 38) that the old chap isn't a bad sort after all. Like Hills, he avoids the seamier side of contemporary Spain. His writing style is less admirable; his anti-Communism is more emphatic and he is generally more polemical, faulting a range of other writers and arguing at length that France was never a ""fascist,"" inasmuch as the Spanish regime is ""traditional, conservative, authoritarian"" and France ""a man of principle, not ideology,"" who broke the old Falange's power. Crozier's book is superior on the whole, more thorough and detailed (and it transmits more primary sources). The ""profiles"" of France's character are rather amusing--Franco is not only a ""man of principle"" but ""pragmatic to the edge of cynicism""; between them these traits can and do explain just about everything. Some of the book's best material covers France's sparring matches with Hitler's emissaries, his ""doctrine of the three wars,"" and the likelihood that France's refusal to let the Germans go through Spain en route to Gibraltar contributed greatly to Allied victory. Postwar factions, policies and events receive more substantive, acute treatment than from Hills. We are left with much the same picture of popular support for a France ""neither hero nor monster,"" and increased understanding of the ""masterly inertia"" with which he has retained and exerted his ""paternalistic"" rule.

Pub Date: April 9, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION