Bøger af Martin Minchom

This book examines coverage of the Spanish Civil War by the leading French and British newspapers, and agencies like Havas and Reuters. Their foundational reporting created a bedrock of 'shared news', which reverberated in places as geographically and ideologically remote as Moscow or Berlin.It focuses on how key events like the mass killings in Badajoz, the siege of the Alcázar of Toledo, the Battle of Madrid, and the bombing of Guernica broke as immensely impactful news stories. By returning to first news, we can view familiar events with fresh eyes. For example, reporting on the siege of the Alcázar was shaped by Republican control of Toledo and had little in common with later Nationalist triumphalism. Guernica is studied as a breaking news story, but also as the culmination of a series of destructive aerial bombardments, including Madrid and Basque towns, which all fed into Picasso's masterpiece. This essay charts the links and transitions between day-to-day reporting, journalistic reportage, and transformative mythmaking.The book utilizes a wide range of material from newspaper libraries, digital resources and extensive archival research. The author draws on his interviews and correspondence with Sir Geoffrey Cox (1910-2008), News Chronicle's Madrid correspondent in November 1936.

Spain's Martyred Cities studies international reactions to the Spanish Civil War between the Battle of Madrid in November 1936 and the bombing of Guernica in April 1937. Many of the iconic events of the war belong to this key period, when international perceptions of the conflict were decisively shaped. The subject is approached through French and British newspapers and pamphlets, and events are linked to both their immediate press coverage and subsequent literary and artistic representations. For contemporaries, the aerial bombardments of Madrid, Guernica and other cities formed part of a single unbroken narrative. It was only later that Guernica acquired its perceived symbolic primacy. Censored reports of the French correspondent Louis Delapree on the bombing of Madrid and his earliest reporting (July--October 1936) were from both the Nationalist and Republican zones, and are used to provide an introductory overview of the early stages of the war. This book shows that Delapree's reports were also an important catalyst in Picasso's artistic involvement in the war, culminating in his Guernica.