A Spanish Civil War Scrapbook: Elizabeth Pearl Bickerstaffe''s Newspaper Cuttings of the Wars in Spain and China from August 1937 to May 1939

Introduction by Paul Preston with a foreword by Rodney Bickerstaffe This scrapbook, kept by a 17-year-old children's nurse in South Yorkshire, offers an insight into the political and emotional impact that the Spanish Civil War had on a generation who lived through the agonising defeat of the Spanish Republic. Elizabeth Pearl Bickerstaffe's cuttings reveal the extent of human suffering in the war in Spain - and likewise in China - in which civilians were the main casualties. They also tell of the vain efforts in Britain and by the International Brigade volunteers in Spain itself to prevent this latest triumph for the fascist powers in Europe. And we sense the fierce commitment to the cause of the Spanish Republic felt by the newspaper correspondents and photographers who witnessed this unfolding tragedy. The role of the foreign correspondents in Spain is discussed in an introduction by Paul Preston, the foremost historian of the Spanish Civil War. In his foreword, Rodney Bickerstaffe underlines the important part played both by the events in Spain and by his mother's scrapbook in shaping his political values. This point is amplified in Jim Jump's preface explaining more about the creation, context and consequences of Pearl Bickerstaffe's compelling scrapbook of one of the major episodes in twentieth-century history. See more