The escalating aggressiveness of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s has logically absorbed the attention of historians dealing with those years, obscuring the fact that from 1936 to 1938 the European issue that often generated the most discussion was the civil war in Spain. During that period, according to Michael Chapman's tabulation, The New York Times devoted one-third more headline space in column inches to the Spanish Civil War and the “Great Debate” raging over it than to reports about Nazi Germany. This finding roughly accords with the results of studies of the amount of attention given to Spain, compared with Germany, in the debates during the same years in the British House of Commons and the French Chamber of Deputies.
The Great Debate revolved around two key issues. First, what was really at stake in Spain, and what was the true nature of the republicans and the nationalists? Second,...