I recently watched The Mexican Suitcase and was deeply impressed by photographs of Spanish refugees mistreated by the French at Le Barcarès, and Gerda Taro's work documenting life in the aftermath of battles. Since I know very little about the SCW, a broad history might be nice. But what I'd really like to read about is what the war meant to families and persons who didn't fight, or were displaced by the fighting, and how memories of the civil war have shaped Spaniards' national consciousness to the present. If there's a good history of the Spanish exodus to Central and South America, I'd be interested in that as well.
Thanks!
*Edit: /u/tobbinator— I just read your comment in this thread. Is Preston's book the go to, or are there others that more specifically cover domestic life during the war?
Preston's book is certainly brilliant for an overview of political and social side of things, as I said in the linked comment. I'd also recommend a few other books:
Ackelsberg's Free Women of Spain for an amazing look into the experiences of the women in the Mujeres Libres anarcha-feminist movement.
Goldman's Vision on Fire for a first hand account of life in anarchist held Catalonia. Also Augustin Souchy's With the Peasants of Aragon and Sam Dolgoff's The Anarchist Collectives are similar accounts of anarchist collectivisation attempts.
Seidman's The Victorious Counterrevolution for an in depth look into the economics of the nationalist zone, and includes plenty of detail on the experiences of civilians and the government's policy towards them.
And also Seidman's Workers Against Work provides some good (and critical) analysis on the contradictions that arose between the CNT's aims in the war and their actual membership base, and their attempts to get the reluctant workers working again.
For violence against civilians I would add Paul Preston's The Spanish Holocaust. It covers violence against noncombatants of both sides in detail, and given that a quarter million people died in such violence it can also be a depressing read. You do have to take Preston with a small grain of salt due to his pro-Republican bias, but his research is top-notch. For another perspective that focuses on the anticlerical violence of the war I recommend The Spanish Civil War as a Religious Tragedy by Jose Sanchez. Sanchez is Catholic and has a mild pro-Catholic bias, but that doesn't stop him from castigating Franco's regime and (rightly) calling it 'barbarous.'
Another perspective could be gained by the first couple chapters of Escape Via Berlin, the memoir of Basque President Jose Antonio Aguirre. He was a civilian--if a unique one.
I am actually currently interested in the Spanish Civil War and can recommend two books as introductions.
From a civilian perspective, focusing on the Catalonian anarchist movement, I just completed Murray Bookchins the Spanish Anarchists.
The Battle for Spain by Anthony Beevor is a really good book focusing on the civil war.
Just searched for literature on Spanish exiles to the Americas, as I'm interested in this topic as well: Mark Falcoff's The Spanish Civil War, 1936-39. American Hemispheric Perspectives includes articles on different regions in South America and Cuba. The first part of Sebastiaan Faber's Exile and Cultural Hegemony: Spanish Intellectuals in Mexico, 1939-75 deals with emigrants from the Civil War.
Looking at Spanish literature, and specifically about Uruguay, Silvia Santiago Facal has written about Spanish and Jewish emigration, for example in Política inmigratoria de puertas cerradas. Uruguay frente a la llegada de refugiados españoles republicanos y judíos alemanes. She describes a generally pro-Republican attitude influenced by Spanish immigration, and how immigration policy became more restricted with the beginning of WWII in Uruguay, but less so than in most Latin American countries. A search for 'exilio espanol' in the journal 'Iberoamericana' also brought up a few interesting articles on Spanish exile theatre, literature and cinema in the Americas.