Icon of modern war

Ian Patterson (Profile, £15.99)

Almost exactly 70 years ago, in April 1937, the historic town of Guernica in the Basque country of far northern Spain was reduced to rubble by aerial bombing. The destruction from the air was inflicted by the German Condor Legion and Italian fascist planes operating in support of Franco's rebels in the Spanish Civil War against the Republican government.

About 10,000 people - including 3,000 refugees - were in Guernica at the start of the raid. Some 1,600 were killed, with another 900 injured.

Franco initially denied that Guernica had been destroyed at all, and then blamed government forces, Anarchists and Communists. But once the true responsibility for the carnage was established by the world's media, this bombing of defenceless civilians became, and has remained, a universal symbol for the horrors of modern war.

The author, Cambridge academic Ian Patterson, concentrates on three areas; how Guernica became the precursor of 'total war' - attacks on civilian populations as legitimate military targets; how this strategy, one of the most feared ideas of 20th-century life, provoked an outpouring of writing predicting that aerial bombing would literally lead to the end of civilisation; and the enduring cultural legacy of Guernica in prose, poetry, film and art.

Picasso's commemorative panel, 11ft tall by 25ft long, painted in black, grey and white for the Spanish pavilion of the World's Fair in 1936, is only the most famous of many intepretations of the fate of Guernica and its civilians. This unforgettable painting is dominated by expressive faces, six of them human, two animal, most of them are screaming. It soon became, and remains, an instantly recognisable depiction of the victims of modern war.

In this readable and engrossing book, Ian Patterson not only sheds light on a grim and tragic episode, but also shows clearly how the bombing of Guernica and the subsequent images of Guernica, in a world of 9/11 and Iraq, are as relevant today as 70 years ago.