The Anarchists of Casas Viejas

In this classic study, anthropologist Jerome R. Mintz examines the lives of Andalusian campesinos, rural workers and peasants, who were swept up by one of the 20th century's pivotal social movements. Widely praised for its deep empathy toward its subject and theoretical sophistication, this analysis overturned previous theories about the organization and leadership of the anarchist movement, providing a new chronology and structure for the tragic uprising that tilted Spain toward civil war. When it was first published in 1982, The Anarchists of Casas Viejas represented a new form of rapprochement between anthropology and history and new modes of research in which oral narratives by ordinary people were used to reexamine great events. In a new introduction for this reprint edition, James W. Fernandez reflects on the fieldwork that led to the book and its contribution to subsequent developments in the ethnography of Europe and the historiography of modern Spain.