Paul Preston has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is A People Betrayed.
A People Betrayed
Summary
Whereas so many 20th-century Spanish histories begin with Franco and the devastating Civil War, Paul Preston's magisterial work begins in the late 19th century with Spain's collapse as a global power, especially reflected in its humiliating defeat in 1898 at the hands of the United States and its loss of colonial territory. With astonishing detail, Preston later describes the ravages that rent Spain in half between 1936 and 1939. Tracing the frightening rise of Francisco Franco, Preston recounts how Franco grew into Spain's most powerful military leader during the Civil War and how, after the war, he became a fascistic dictator who not only terrorized the Spanish population through systematic oppression and murder, but also enriched corrupt officials who profited from severe economic plunder of Spain's working class. The dictatorship lasted through World War II - during which Spain sided with Mussolini and Hitler - and only ended decades later, in 1975, when Franco's death was followed by a painful yet bloodless transition to republican democracy. Yet, as Preston reveals, corruption and political incompetence continued to have a corrosive effect on social cohesion into the 21st century, as economic crises, Catalan independence struggles, and financial scandals persist in dividing the country.
©2020 Paul Preston (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
![Cover art for Un pueblo traicionado [A People Betrayed]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51r1h-UxLwL._SL500_.jpg)
Un pueblo traicionado [A People Betrayed]
Summary
La historia del siglo XX español contada por el eminente hispanista Paul Preston. Paul Preston emprende en esta obra el reto más atractivo para cualquier historiador: condensar su objeto de investigación en un manejable libro, reflejo de tantos años de experiencia. Con una concisión abrumadora, estas páginas exponen la historia del siglo XX en España, con el tema subyacente del desajuste entre una población deseosa de progresar y unas elites que no cesan de bloquear sus intentos. Un pueblo traicionado es, en definitiva, una crónica sobrecogedora de la devastadora deslealtad hacia los españoles por parte de su clase política, impasible ante la realidad social del país. Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2019 Paul Preston (P)2019 Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, S.A.U.
A People Betrayed
Summary
From the foremost historian of 20th-century Spain, A People Betrayed is the story of the devastating betrayal of Spain by its political class, its military and its Church. This comprehensive history of modern Spain chronicles the fomenting of violent social division throughout the country by institutionalised corruption and startling political incompetence. Most spectacularly during the Primo de Rivera and Franco dictatorships, grotesque and shameless corruption went hand-in-hand with inept policies that prolonged Spain’s economic backwardness well into the 1950s. A People Betrayed looks back to the years prior to 1923 when electoral corruption excluded the masses from organised politics and gave them a choice between apathetic acceptance and violent revolution. Bitter social conflict, economic tensions and conflict between centralist nationalism and regional independence movements then exploded into the civil war of 1936-1939. It took the horrors of that war and the dictatorship that followed to break the pattern. The moderation shared by the progressive right and a chastened left underlay a bloodless transition to democracy after 1975. Yet, as before, corruption and political incompetence continued to have a corrosive effect on political coexistence and social cohesion. Sparkling with vivid portraits of politicians and army officers, some corrupt and others clean, recounting the triumphs and disasters of Kings Alfonso XIII and Juan Carlos, A People Betrayed unravels the mystery of why both right and left have been unable or unwilling to deal with corruption and the pernicious clash between Spanish centralist nationalism and regional desires for independence.
©2020 Paul Preston (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited