Franco: A Concise Biography

Rating:
Summary: Franco: a concise biography
Review: How many thousand ways can a book irritate you?

This took me near the limit. Before I criticise, I appreciated the fact, albeit in part borrowed from Hodge's partner, that there was a genuine understanding of Spain and Franco from a historical perspective. So plus points for a genuine feeling of accuracy in terms of dates and places.

But irritate it did.

Reasons are several. Mostly it is clear that the author dislikes -- very deeply -- the subject of the biography. Hardly a good start to an informed criticism. Especially one that aims to open up the psychology of the man. Look for a word of praise for Franco and the best you will find are epithets that end up looking bland like "brave". Look for words of disgust and it's difficult where to stop.

(And as an aside why does every sentence seem to have an adjective or adverb in it? Do we have to say personal when we talk about "Franco's personal animosity"? Leisure being enforced, enjoyment being physical, people are deeply impressed, profoundly reassured etc. And why the persistent cliches, sometimes convoluted, of "strutting the international stage", "dizzy ascent up the heirarchical ladder" "cold wind of reality was, however, blowing hard"?)

At best this mostly one-sided view of Franco -- and I am no admirer of him at all -- reduced this to pyschohistory babble. At least be impartial if you're trying to explain someone's thinking was my conclusion.

The book wasn't helped by a mass of allusions to other writers.

To quote somebody else, even a husband here, is no great proof of anything. Surely this is superficial scholarship when you quote commentators rather than sources? And I for one wondered how phrases like "according to Norma Dixon" (who he/she?) to name one of several could have passed through the sub-editing process.

So is this book meant to be an academic one -- it is stuffed full of footnotes -- then why the baby explanation of Freud's Oedipus complex?

The answer is that it doesn't know. It teeters between the two. So, at its worst you are presented with familial/psychological reasons for all the defects of Spain's most bloody dictator but no understanding of what it felt like to be in the man's presence. Sadly more so when we look at the early years on Franco's way up from being a young soldier.

Hundreds of commentators said that he was a charismatic man -- phrases like "an aura of silence and power" abound from quite early on. One biographer even said he had never seen a man with such extraordinary bladder control in that he could remain immovable at his desk for hours on end!

For this reason it was a shame that Franco's own account of his military life in Morocco is glossed over in favour of emphasising his own (and deliberately fictionalised) account of the same story.

This book is not irredeemably bad. Far from it. The writing, despite its horrendous love of qualifiers, is good. There is a real sense that the author knows what she is talking about and for someone wanting to find out about Franco, this is arguably an able primer.

But sad to say, a bit indistinguished for all that.

Rating:
Summary: POOR
Review: Previous reviewers are right on the mark concerning the poor quality of this book. My criticisms with this book are primarily twofold.

1.Hodges, like her husband Paul Preston another Franco biographer, seem bent on attempting to psychoanalyze every pronouncement, decision and action ever made by Franco. Psycho history, whether from the left or the right, is generally bad history in that it leads the historian into a very ambiguous area of interpretation. This type of history becomes particularly dangerous when the historian, like Hodges, possesses a visceral dislike for her subject. That is certainly the case here.

2. While Hodges possess a firm grasp of figures, dates and personalities, She fails, in my view, to capture the quintessentially Spanish nature of the Franco. Above all else, Franco was an uncompromisng nationalist who displayed the unique Spanish conciousness of tradition, conservative Catholicism and political expediency. Franco would as quickly manipulate the Right as he would crush the Left if he thought it would advance Spain. One has only to trace his relationship with Nazi Germany or even the Spanish Falange as cases in point. Like many Spaniards of all classes in the 1930s, he could be critical of the institutional heirarchy of the Catholic Church. What he and many Spaniards couldn't tolerate and branded "anti-Spain" was the indiscriminate killing of priests and sacking of churches by the extreme Left. Yes, Franco was certainly no democrat and he could casually brutalize any opposition, particularly during and immediatly after the Civil War. But both Franco and the many interested readers are more deserving of a sober, balanced treatment than this diatribe delivers.

Rating:
Summary: Propagandistic, biased psychobabble
Review: Previous reviewers have said it all, so I'll just sum it up: Mrs. Hodges' only motive to write this book was obviously her deep hatred toward Franco. In line with other apologists of the deeply flawed, undemocratic Republican rule, she glosses over the outrages and injustices committed by the Spanish Republican government but spends an inordinate amount of time analyzing - in a rather silly psychobabbly fashion - every single episode in Franco's life which may reveal "sinister" connotations. This strange book tries very hard to uphold the myth of the Spanish Civil War as a good fight against "fascist" totalitarianism. In fact, it was Franco who fought for independent Spain against Stalinist totalitarian dictature.

Rating:
Summary: Propagandistic, biased psychobabble
Review: The author is the wife of Paul Preston, a Bristish leftist scholar of the Spanish Civil War who wrote his own biography of Franco a few years ago. From everything I can see from this book Ms. Hodges largely relies on her husband's research. Her main contribution, I believe she is a psychiatrist, is to attempt to psychoanalyze Franco. Thus motivations for various actions of Franco are attributed to conflicts with his father, feelings of inadequacy and sexual insecurities. This technique of course gives an author freedom to say virtually anything about any historical figure since internal motivations are rarely known based upon external evidence and the whole process is often speculation dressed up in psychological jargon.

The author makes no attempt to hide her biases: she despises Franco. Judging from several snide comments in the book I also assume that she doesn't think much of the Catholic Church.
Inconvenient facts are completely ignored. While highlighting Nationalist atrocities during the Spanish Civil War, she completely ignores Republican atrocities. The author notes the support of much of the Church for Franco while not mentioning the massacre of tens of thousands of priests, brothers, sisters and lay Catholics at the beginning of the War which propelled the Church into the arms of the Nationalists. This is polemic and not history.

The only virtue of this book is that it is concise. It has nothing of value to say about Franco or his times. Avoid this book unless, like me, you just have to have every English language work on the Spanish Civil War.

Rating:
Summary: Concise is Good
Review: The author is the wife of Paul Preston, a Bristish leftist scholar of the Spanish Civil War who wrote his own biography of Franco a few years ago. From everything I can see from this book Ms. Hodges largely relies on her husband's research. Her main contribution, I believe she is a psychiatrist, is to attempt to psychoanalyze Franco. Thus motivations for various actions of Franco are attributed to conflicts with his father, feelings of inadequacy and sexual insecurities. This technique of course gives an author freedom to say virtually anything about any historical figure since internal motivations are rarely known based upon external evidence and the whole process is often speculation dressed up in psychological jargon.

The author makes no attempt to hide her biases: she despises Franco. Judging from several snide comments in the book I also assume that she doesn't think much of the Catholic Church.
Inconvenient facts are completely ignored. While highlighting Nationalist atrocities during the Spanish Civil War, she completely ignores Republican atrocities. The author notes the support of much of the Church for Franco while not mentioning the massacre of tens of thousands of priests, brothers, sisters and lay Catholics at the beginning of the War which propelled the Church into the arms of the Nationalists. This is polemic and not history.

The only virtue of this book is that it is concise. It has nothing of value to say about Franco or his times. Avoid this book unless, like me, you just have to have every English language work on the Spanish Civil War.