Alex Brown
A MUCH-LOVED expert on Spanish history whose work was banned by Franco has passed away.
British historian Hugh Thomas, an associate of Margaret Thatcher, masterfully chronicled the great upheaval in the Hispanic world, from Spain’s imperial expansion to its civil war.
The life peer died from a stroke in New York in the US, aged 85.
His vast explorations of Spain won him international notoriety, beginning with The Spanish Civil War, published in 1961.
Banned in Spain during the Franco era, it won the prestigious Somerset Maugham Prize in 1962 and is regarded as a classic, remaining in print to this day.
