Ronald Fraser (1930-2012)
Ronald Fraser. Photo Carles Francesc
The historian Ronald Fraser, author Blood of Spain, has died in Spain, where he lived. Blood of Spain, Tariq Ali writes in The Guardian, “is a peerless account of the Spanish civil war, carefully constructed from interviews with participants on both sides”:
Conducted with a steady and consistently courteous voice, the book helped establish oral history as a discipline in its own right. Ronnie disliked the description – “as though it were a category of historiography on a par with ‘economic’ or ‘political’ history rather than what it actually is: the creation of new sources to further historical research.”
Fraser was closely involved with the The New Left Review and Verso; more from Ali’s obit here. Julián Casanova’s El País tribute to Fraser is here.
