Description

Aguirre [the Basque leader who reported the bombing] is lying. We have respected Guernica as we respect everything Spanish – Francisco Franco The book begins with a graphic account of what happened in Guernica on 26 April 1937 and its place in the course of the Spanish Civil War. But Guernica also almost at once became a media focus, and Picasso s great painting, which made Guernica the most famous image of total war, was only one of a huge number of cultural artefacts – paintings, films, novels, poems, plays – to explore the great themes of the last hundred years. Ian Patterson brilliantly traces this hidden story of terror right down to 9 11 and Iraq – the image of Guernica is just as relevant today.