Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Caudillo of Spain from the Nationalists brutal, Fascist-sponsored victory over the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War until his quiet death in 1975, is the subject of this book. The biography presents a mass of new and unknown material about its subject, the fruits of research in the archives of six countries and a plethora of interviews with key figures. Paul Preston is the author of The Triumph of Democracy in Spain and The Spanish Civil War 1936-9 .