I'm looking for a good introduction to the Spanish Civil War. I would ideally like one that can set the stage for the political dynamics of Spain prior to the beginning of the conflict as well as the underlying causes of the War.
Ideally, I'd like to get a sense of the various factions on the Right and Left of the conflict, and to get a sense of "what made them tick." What united them? What divided them? How did the urban/rural divide play into the politics dynamics of Spain? How did fear of Communism and the Great Depression affect the conflict? How did memories of Spain's time at the top of the international hierarchy in the 16th Century and its subsequent decline affect the conflict?
Does anyone have any recommendations of books or other forms of media? I'm starting to form my own interpretations of what was going on, but there's nothing quite like a good survey history!
Antony Beevor's book is pretty good and is widely respected by Spanish historians, but he is not technically a historian of Spain. His book would suit you well if you're mainly concerned with the military aspects of the civil war. However, if you want a more balanced analysis of long-term social and political causes (which is what your question implies), his book is not for you. His opening chapter, which gives an overview of Spanish history and discusses long-term structural causes, is far too infused with Black Legend myths of unique Spanish cruelty and decline. I say this with all due respect to you, of course, since you technically advanced an argument of decline in your question. Most contemporary Spanish historians like David Ringrose, Pamela Radcliff, David Ortiz, and others have long dismissed the Spanish decline myth and provided fairly convincing evidence for it. This brings me to my last point, which is that some of the questions you're asking would be better answered by reading books that aren't technically about the civil war. Historians of the civil war, in their eagerness to explain its causes, sometimes distort the overall picture or frame the pattern of events in Spanish history as one of inevitable decline toward civil war. But that is not necessarily the case. It's very important to keep that in mind as you read histories of the Spanish Civil War.
The Spanish Civil War is a highly contentious historical topic and there are few volumes that are truly balanced in their assessments. Therefore, I will recommend books from both right and left-wing perspectives that address the issues you raised, such as social causes, economics, the development of mass politics, and long-term historical origins. Your job will be to synthesize these opposite voices and arrive at your own conclusion. The Civil War is not an easy topic to distill and respected historians on both sides are going to give you very different accounts. I will label these as "left-wing/right-wing histories of the Civil War. Then I will provide a third list of books that cover different periods or longer periods of modern Spanish history that set the stage for the civil war quite nicely.
Left-wing histories of the Civil War:
Spain at War: The Spanish Civil War in Context by Adrian Shubert and George Esenwein (my personal favorite and one of the most balanced, though I put it in this category because I think it still tilts to the left).
The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge and The Coming of the Spanish Civil War by Paul Preston (2 books)
The Spanish Republic at War, 1936-1939 by Helen Graham
Ghosts of Passion: Martyrdom, Gender and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War by Brian Bunk
Right-wing histories of the Civil War
The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936 and The Spanish Civil War by Stanley Payne (2 books)
The 'Red Terror' and the Spanish Civil War: Revolutionary Violence in Madrid by Julius Ruiz
The Republic and the Civil War in Spain, anthology edited by Raymond Carr
Republic of Egos: A Social History of the Spanish Civil War by Michael Seidman
Other histories of modern Spain that provide good context for the Civil War to come (Keep in mind, these books are addressing different historical questions at different points in time. They are not all directly concerned questions about the causes of the civil war. However, each book provides provocative insights for historians to better understand Spain's path to civil war):
Praetorian Politics in Liberal Spain by Carolyn Boyd
From Mobilization to Civil War: The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijon by Pamela Radcliff
The Emergence of Mass Politics in Spain: Populist Demagoguery and Republican Culture, 1890-1910 by Jose Alvarez Junco
Republicanism and Anticlerical Nationalism in Spain by Enrique Sanabria
The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898-1923 by Sebastian Balfour
Making Spaniards: Primo de Rivera and the Nationalization of the Masses, 1923-1930 by Alejandro Quiroga
Spain, 1833-2002 by Mary Vincent
Spanish History since 1808, anthology edited by Jose Alvarez Junco and Adrian Shubert
A Social History of Modern Spain by Adrian Shubert
Spain, Europe, and the 'Spanish Miracle' by David Ringrose (addresses the civil war little but argues against the story of Spanish decline over the centuries, which suggests that the civil war was by no means inevitable or certain)
11 Spain, 1808-1975 by Raymond Carr (who argues the exact opposite of the man above haha)