Richard Baxell
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richardbaxell.bsky.social
Richard Baxell
@richardbaxell.bsky.social
British historian writing about the International Brigades.
Author of Unlikely Warriors, the British in the Spanish Civil War. Recent collection of biographies, Forged in Spain, published by theclaptonpress.bsky.social.
richardbaxell.info for more.
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Great, as always, to talk with @eoghangilmartin.bsky.social, correspondent in Spain for @jacobinmag.bsky.social, as part of the @sobremesapod.bsky.social.

open.spotify.com/episode/5LrQ...
Franco Anniversary: What Is His Regime's Legacy after 50 Years?
open.spotify.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
🎉 All stipendiary IHR Fellowships, Bursaries, & Prizes are now LIVE! 🎉

universityoflondon.smapply.io/prog/lst/

(All of our open competitions start with "IHR" in the title.)

Got a question? Please check the application page & our website for more information.

www.history.ac.uk/fellowships-...
Programs - School of Advanced Study
universityoflondon.smapply.io
November 19, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Inked or pencil sketches from £40 (A4)
Painted portraits from £200 (24x30cm)
Digital sketches also available from £20

Shout if you want some examples and please do share! 🙏
November 19, 2025 at 11:39 AM
The Silence of Others is a must-watch. Really excellent programme.
This was broadcast on tv while I was living in Spain, as victims of Spain’s 40-years under Franco organized an international lawsuit to fight the “pact of forgetting” around the crimes they suffered. A cautionary tale about fascism and the dangers of forgetting the past.
November 19, 2025 at 11:22 AM
This piece by María Ramírez is excellent. As she says,
'forgetting history can make you take for granted the democratic freedoms that need constant vigilance and protection.' A lesson for us all...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
I grew up in Spain amid a collective amnesia about Franco. It is time we faced up to our dark past | María Ramírez
This week marks 50 years of Spanish democracy, but the failure to talk more about the crimes of the dictatorship leaves us vulnerable, says the journalist María Ramírez
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 10:26 AM
'More than 21% of those surveyed felt the Franco era was “good” or “very good”.'
Not so good for those lying in unmarked shallow graves.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
‘Dangerous nostalgia’: did Spain’s ‘pact of forgetting’ after Franco leave new generation open to far right?
Events to mark the 50th anniversary of dictator’s death are intended to remind Spaniards, particularly the young, of the dangers of fascism
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
This perfectly encapsulates why we need the BBC
November 13, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
JOB
College Lectureship and Fellowship in Modern History and Politics (c20), Trinity College, Cambridge

[This includes a teaching requirement for International Relations]

www.trin.cam.ac.uk/vacancies/co...
College Lectureship and Fellowship in Modern History and Politics
Applications are invited for appointment to a College Lectureship in Modern History and Politics, together with a Fellowship, tenable for five years in the first instance, with the possibility of…
www.trin.cam.ac.uk
November 11, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Boris Johnson says the idea that criticism of the BBC is being organised by the right is ‘complete and utter bollocks’, which makes me think there might be something in it.
November 11, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Memorial to the Jewish volunteers of the International Brigades. It plays with Star of David and the 3-point of the IB. Around 20% (about 7,000) of Brigaders were Jewish. Fossar de la Pedrera, the mass grave of the victims of the Franco regime in Barcelona, Montjüic cemetery
November 9, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
NEW EPISODE!!

Spanish Football under Franco: Sportswashing Avant la Lettre

@eoghangilmartin.bsky.social talks to Alex Quiroga about the use of football as a propaganda tool under the Francisco Franco dictatorship

Spotify:
open.spotify.com/episode/6xD6...

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/s...
Spanish Football under Franco: Sportswashing Avant la Lettre
open.spotify.com
November 4, 2025 at 10:53 PM
'Rosalind Franklin has been reduced to the “wronged heroine” of the double helix [but] she deserves to be remembered not as the victim of the double helix, but as an equal contributor to the solution of the structure.'
November 8, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
incredible photo that's definitely worth at least 1,000 words from Andrew Harnik of Getty
November 6, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Well done Spain! It's taken a while but this is great news. Very pleased for Peter and all the other descendents around the world.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Spain grants citizenship to descendants of civil war’s International Brigades
About 32,000 volunteered to fight Franco dictatorship, including 2,500 men and women from Britain and Ireland
www.theguardian.com
November 4, 2025 at 3:42 PM
More than one in three think he's doing a good job? Really? 🤦‍♂️
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Trump approval rating falls to second-term low of 37%
New CNN/SSRS survey shows decline in president’s popularity as 68% of respondents say things going badly
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
So pleased to get my book "Travels through the Spanish Civil War". @HurstPublishers publishers have done a wonderful job in producing it.
Advanced copies available thru
www.hurstpublishers.com/book/travels... with 25% off with code TRAVELS25. Otherwise 20 November in UK/Europe and 5 Jan for US, etc
November 1, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Anyway, we need some joy, so here's the Egyptian foreign minister being given a Lego Pyramid by the Danish foreign minister.
November 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
"it is striking how many of the key players we have looked into — the people who have gone out of their way to put up hundreds of flags — seem anything but ordinary."

manchestermill.co.uk/the-men-who-...
The men who raised the flags
Nigel Farage says this summer’s movement was led by ‘ordinary people’ expressing their patriotism. That’s not what we found
manchestermill.co.uk
November 2, 2025 at 8:18 AM
This is rather good!
October 30, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.
October 30, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Lol I just asked Grok whether Grokipedia is more neutral than Wikipedia and even it can't lie about this
October 29, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Richard Baxell
Delighted with this:
‘For anyone who cares about the Spanish Civil War, this book is a literary— +visual—treat. And for anyone who wants to see how history can be brought alive by going to the places where it happened, it’s a superb model’
Adam Hochschild
www.hurstpublishers.com/book/travels...
Travels Through the Spanish Civil War | Hurst Publishers
A revelatory journey into the Spanish Civil War’s physical and visual legacies, investigating how conflict is memorialised, and obscured, today.
www.hurstpublishers.com
October 28, 2025 at 6:50 PM