Guernica and Total War

Hardcover

ISBN 9780674024847

Publication date: 06/01/2007

One of the most horrific innovations of the twentieth century was the deliberate strategy of total warfare--the obliteration of entire civilian populations. The first and in many ways the most striking use of this extreme measure came nearly 70 years ago when the ancient Basque hilltop town of Guernica was destroyed by the bombs of the German Condor.

Ian Patterson begins with a graphic account of what happened in Guernica on April 26, 1937, and its place in the course of the Spanish Civil War. This event focused the spotlight of media attention on the town of Guernica, and established Picasso's painting as the most famous modern image of the horrors of war. Yet Picasso's Guernica was only one of a huge number of cultural artifacts--paintings, films, novels, poems, plays--to explore the idea of indiscriminate death from the air. From the Blitz to Hiroshima to the destruction of the World Trade Center to daily carnage in Darfur and Iraq, war has been increasingly directed against civilians, who constitute an ever larger proportion of its casualties. Patterson explores how modern men and women respond to the threat of new warfare with new capacities for imagining aggression and death. An unflinching history of the locationless terror that so many people feel today, Guernica and Total War will engage anyone interested in the survival of cultures amid the disasters of war.

Praise

Patterson has written a rich and engaging study… A slim book of considerable rewards.

—Jeffrey Burke, Bloomberg.com
What makes this work particularly interesting is Patterson’s effort to place the attack within the broader context of modern aerial warfare. How have nations’ standards and attitudes evolved in their views regarding the acceptability of attacks upon civilians? How have governments reacted when accused of unwarranted attacks from the air? Most importantly, how have the potential victims responded to the constant fear that death and destruction could rain down upon them with little or no warning? Patterson writes in a clear, cogent style and handles these emotionally charged topics with necessary objectivity. Unfortunately, these are issues we are likely to be confronted with on a regular basis in this age of global terrorism.

—Jay Freeman, Booklist
A short but piercing account of the 1937 bombing of the Basque town that Picasso’s painting helped turn into an image of total war (or war by obliteration of whole civilian populations). The book’s strength is its incisive treatment of the post-Guernica literary reaction to bombardment.

—J. Daley, Choice
This is potent stuff. Guernica symbolizes the ethical dilemma of modern warfare. Patterson is a masterful storyteller, who seeks to convey the experience of ‘the sky falling on one’s head.’ He offers profound historical reflections as well as a thoughtful meditation on our own times.

—Joanna Bourke, Professor of History, Birkbeck College