Paul Preston

Sir Paul Preston CBE (born 21 July 1946) is an English historian and Hispanist, biographer of Francisco Franco, and specialist in Spanish history, in particular the Spanish Civil War, which he has studied for more than 50 years. He is the winner of multiple awards for his books on the Spanish Civil War.

Biography
Preston was born in 1946 in Liverpool. Preston said in an interview that he has sympathy for the Second Spanish Republic: "I came from a fairly left-wing family. You could not really be from working-class Liverpool and not be left-wing. Emotionally, in my feeling for the Republic I think there is an element of indignation about the Republic's defeat, solidarity with the losing side. Maybe that's why I support Everton, although Everton wasn't the losing side in my day."

Preston studied for his undergraduate degree at Oriel College, Oxford. He then gained an MA in European Studies at the University of Reading. He moved back to Oriel College to gain his DPhil.

From 1991 to 2020 Preston taught at the London School of Economics, where he was Príncipe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish Studies and the founding director of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies.

He is a frequent visitor to Spain, where his work appears in Spanish and Catalan. He speaks both languages.

He has a wife, Gabriella, to whom he dedicated The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain.

Publications
"I try to be honest, even if the right-wing press paints me as an amateur and a liar." (2021)

Preston has produced a biography of Franco (Basic Books, 1994). He has also published a biography of King Juan Carlos I (2003). Recent books include We Saw Spain Die, on the subject of foreign correspondents who reported on the Spanish Civil War and Perfidious Albion: Britain and the Spanish Civil War, a collection of essays exploring "the hypocrisy of British foreign policy towards the Spanish Republic, in contrast to the selfless contribution of medical personnel from across the globe, including many doctors and nurses from Britain, Ireland and Commonwealth countries, and assessing the influence of prominent ‘writer-historians’ including George Orwell and Herbert Southworth."

The Spanish Holocaust
In 2012 he published the English edition of the Spanish Holocaust. This book represents a challenge to the pact of forgetting, examining the many deaths and atrocities associated with the Spanish Civil War, and following the Francoist repression into the early 1950s.

The book was criticised by the historian Stanley G. Payne; while Payne did praise Preston for his depth and breadth of research into atrocities in and after the war, he criticised Preston for bias when it came to Republican atrocities. Payne argues that Franco's policy was to simply eliminate the leaders and main activists of the Republicans while letting most of the rank and file go free.

At the same time the book received praise among academics and journalists, with Giles Tremlett writing in the Guardian: "Preston provides facts, figures and harrowing descriptions in the first full and proper attempt to explain the horror. He does not shy away from strong words – 'holocaust' is deliberately chosen to describe the extent of cold-blooded killing [...] because its resonances with systematic murder should be evoked in the Spanish case, as they are in those of Germany or Russia".“

Architects of Terror
In 2023, he published Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain, in which he examined the conspiracy theories and antisemitism behind the rise of Francoism. The book included profiles of six figures within the Francoist camp: Emilio Mola, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Mauricio Carlavilla, Juan Tusquets Terrats, José María Pemán, and Gonzalo de Aguilera Munro.

Robert Low of The Jewish Chronicle reviewed the book positively, saying that it "shows how fake news is certainly not an invention of the 21st century, and that its consequences can be far-reaching and frequently lethal."

Awards and honours

 * 2000 2000 Queen's Birthday Honours List Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division)
 * 2005 Ramon Llull International Prize
 * 2006 Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
 * 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize, shortlist, The Spanish Holocaust
 * 2013 Honour Prize of the Lluís Carulla's Foundation
 * 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours List: Knighthood for services to UK/Spain relations.

Honorary Doctorates

 * 2015 Doctor Honoris causa from the Universitat Rovira i Virigili
 * 2015 Doctor Honoris causa from the University of Liverpool
 * 2015 Doctor Honoris causa from the Universidad de Extremadura
 * 2015 Doctor Honoris causa from the Universitat de València
 * 2016 Doctor Honoris causa from the Universitat de Barcelona
 * 2019 Doctor Honoris causa from the Universidad de Cantabria
 * 2023 Doctor Honoris causa from the Universidad de Granada