Author: Peter Day ISBN: 9781849543613 Format: PB Extent: 272 pp. Price: £9.99 Publication: Available Publisher: Biteback

In 1936, a British plane flew to the Canaries. On board, Major Hugh Pollard was travelling in the company of two attractive young blondes. But this was no holiday and Pollard no ordinary tourist, he was a long-time MI6 agent embarking on a secret mission. Later, leaving the Canaries for Morocco, the very same plane carried another passenger: General Francisco Franco.

With a cast list that reads like a who’s who of British intelligence, Franco’s Friends tells the little-known story of how MI6 helped orchestrate the coup that brought General Franco to power. In this revelatory account, by drawing on previously classified files, Peter Day details the bribes, the plots and the moral dilemmas behind one of the most dubious acts ever carried out by the British government in the name of self-interest.

Author: M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo ISBN: 9781441103826 Format: HB Extent: 224 pp. Price: £65 Publication: Available Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

When the Europeans first arrived in America, they had a number of preconceptions, prejudices, expectations and hopes about what life in the New World would be like. This book examines the different visions and representations of America conveyed in the writings of Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and the Pilgrim leader William Bradford, taking both writers within their respective literary and historical contexts.

Anthologies of American literature have consistently ignored Spanish-language achievements on the grounds of a restrictive interpretation of American literature based on linguistic boundaries. Consequently, Spanish-language texts such as Cabeza de Vaca’s or the account by the Hidalgo de Elvas, to name but two examples, have been marginalized in the narrative of American literary history. In seeking to redress this neglect, Galisteo contributes to scholarship which seeks to analyze Early America as a whole, including not only Anglo American perspectives but also the Spanish American aspect of the colonization process.

Author: Maria-José Blanco López de Lerma ISBN: 9781855662476 Format: HB Extent: 230 pp. Price: £50 Publication: Available Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000) was one of the most important Spanish writers of the second half of the twentieth century. From the 1940s, until her death in 2000, she published short stories, novels, poetry, drama, children literature and cultural and historical studies. This book studies life writing in Martín Gaite’s notebooks Cuadernos de todo (2002) and her novels of the 1990s, Nubosidad variable (1992), La Reina de las nieves (1994), Lo raro es vivir (1996) and Irse de casa (1998). It looks at the use of first person narration in Martín Gaite’s work, drawing a parallel between the notebooks and her fictional work. It further analyses the way the author’s notebooks relate to the development of her later novels as well as the use of writing as therapy. This work offers a way of looking at Carmen Martín Gaite’s work from a personal and intimate perspective.

Author: José Fernández Urbiña,             Mar Marcos Sanchez & Andrew Fear ISBN: 9781780932170 Format: HB Extent: 256 pp. Price: £70 Publication: Available Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Late Antiquity witnessed a major transformation in the authority and power of the Episcopate within the Church, with the result that bishops came to embody the essence of Christianity and increasingly overshadow the leading Christian laity. The rise of Episcopal power came in a period in which drastic political changes produced long and significant conflicts both within and outside the Church. This book examines these problems in depth, looking at bishops’ varied roles in both causing and resolving these disputes, including those internal to the church, those which began within the church but had major effects on wider society, and those of a secular nature.

Author: Christopher Othen ISBN: 9781849042475 Format: PB Extent: 344 pp. Price: £15.99 Publication: Available Publisher: Hurst & Company

Foreign volunteers fought on behalf of General Franco and the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War for a right-wing cause whose aim was to smash democracy. These assorted adventurers, fascists, and Catholic crusaders were on the winning side, but their role has remained strangely hidden until now. Men from Portugal and Morocco signed on for money and adventure. General Eoin O’Duffy organised 700 Irishmen in a modern Crusade; 500 Catholic Frenchmen fought in the ‘Jeanne D’Arc’ unit; and thirty British volunteers, including aristocrats and working-class fascists, also took up arms. Romanian Iron Guard extremists died at Majadahonda and an Indian volunteer fought in the fascist militia. There were Russians, Americans, Finns, Belgians, Greeks, Cubans, and many more. Goose-stepping alongside the volunteers were fascist conscripts from Germany and Italy, in training for the next world war. Foreigners, whether unknown individuals like British pilot Cecil Bebb or infamous figures like the German dictator Adolf Hitler, were essential to Franco’s victory. Without Bebb –– who flew General Francisco Franco from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco in 1936, a journey which was to precipitate the onset of the Spanish Civil War — the war would never have started; without Hitler, Franco would never have won.

Author: J.K. Birksted ISBN: 9780754678014 Format: HB Extent: 197 pp. Price: £55 Publication: Available Publisher: Ashgate

Set on a hillside near Cluny, in a region associated with religious institutions and sacred architecture (including Le Corbusier’s La Tourette), Le Carmel de la Paix, designed by José Luis Sert, remains tranquilly unvisited and quietly erased from architectural history. Why? This unusual convent falls outside the standard categories of Sert’s architecture and has been overlooked in most publications about his work. As J.K. Birksted explains, the design and construction process for this building proved nightmarish, resulting in a building which, at first sight, appears to be ‘ineloquent’. This first detailed examination of this building shows how the convent and the story of its creation offer valuable and important new insights into Sert, his architecture and his life.

Author: António José Bento Goncalves ISBN: 9781622574742 Format: HB Extent: 214 pp. Price: £124.99 Publication: Available Publisher: Nova Science (Gazelle)

One of the oldest nations in Europe, Portugal has changed immensely over the past 40 years. The revolution of 1974, which established democracy, the decolonization, the negotiation and finally accession to the European Union and, most recently, the adoption of the Euro, have profoundly marked the past four decades and changed the entire structure of the country. This book outlines the present Portuguese economic, political and social issues of the new millennium.

Author: Luxe City Guides ISBN: 9789888132065 Format: Folded Card Extent: - pp. Price: £4.99 Publication: Available Publisher: Luxe City Guides

From the Romans and Moors to today’s global traveller, the world, it seems, can’t get enough of Barcelona. This blue-skied bombshell has more razzle dazzle than a De Beers heiress, from her glittering Mediterranean Sea, stunning architectural marvels and museums, to her bold fashion, culinary fireworks and sparkling wines. Barcelona is beautiful, she’s mysterious, she’s wanton and she’s waiting… So why are you?

Author: Margaret Irwin ISBN: 9780749012625 Format: PB Extent: 320 pp. Price: £7.99 Publication: Available Publisher: Allison & Busby

Philip, Prince of Spain, the unwilling bridegroom of Queen Mary, has been warned about the Queen’s half-sister, the  young Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn. According to all reports, she is a heretic, a rebel and a potential enemy, and  has ‘a spirit full of enchantment’. An alluring description and one that immediately intrigues, rather than deters, the foreign prince.

Accused of treachery by Mary and under threat of death, Elizabeth’s life hangs in the balance. But, idolised by his aging wife and able to sway her decisions his way, Philip holds the power to save the courageous young princess. And so  Elizabeth must advance warily towards her destiny, running the gauntlet between Bloody Mary’s jealousy and morbid outbursts of hate, and Philip’s uneasy ardour.

Author: Maurice O’Connor ISBN: 9781908479204 Format: PB Extent: 352 pp. Price: £7.99 Publication: Available Publisher: Milo Books (Turnaround)

For nearly thirty years, Maurice `Mo’ O’Connor trafficked cannabis from north Africa to the cities of the UK and Ireland. Buying from the growers and selling to the dealers from his base on the Costa del Sol, he became the middleman for anyone seeking a consignment of ‘puff’, large or small. Along the way, he was a bar owner, card sharp, bookmaker and even bullfight promoter, and mixed with the most notorious gangsters in Europe. In this often hilarious memoir, he tells the inside story of the puff game and its triumphs and disasters.