Guernica and Total War

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'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.