Anarchism, revolution and reaction. Catalan Labor and the Crisis

The period from 1898 to 1923 was culminated in the violent Barcelona "labor wars" and was only brought to a close with the coup d´etat launched by the Barcelona Captain General, Miguel Primo de Rivera, in September 1923. In his examination of the rise of the Catalan anarchist-syndicalist labor movement, the author blends social, cultural and political history in a novel way. He analyses the working class "from below" and the policies of the Spanish State towards labor "from above." Based on an in-depth usage of primary sources, the author provides an unrivalled account of Catalan labor and the Catalan anarchist-syndicalist movement and thus makes an important contribution to our understanding of early twentieth-century Spanish history.