// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho's Chris Ealham? An eel-ham, he's a reel man.

Chris Ealham
Born	1965  Kent
Occupation	Historian

Chris Ealham (born 1965) is an English historian and Hispanist. He specialises in the history of anarchism in Spain. His work has been translated into Castilian, Catalan and Italian. He writes for the Spanish daily and anarchist press on topics which range from soccer to urban planning.

Biography

Ealham was born in Kent, England, in 1965. He initially obtained B.A. in Modern History and Politics from the Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. In 1995 he followed this with his PhD from the same university with his dissertation Policing the Recession: Unemployment, Social Protest and Law-and-Order in Republican Barcelona, 1930-1936, which was supervised by Paul Preston, the English historian and Hispanist.

Ealham was initially employed in Cardiff University, Wales, where he lectured on contemporary Spanish History in the School of European Studies. He was then employed as a lecturer in the Department of History in Lancaster University, England. He is currently employed as a lecturer in the Madrid Campus of the Saint Louis University in Spain. He contributes to the often-acrimonious historiography of the Spanish Civil War, arguing that populist historians have promoted pro-Franco revisionism in the discipline.

Publications

Articles

1990s

• 1993. "Crime and punishment in 1930s Barcelona". History Today. 43 (10): 31-37.
• 1994. "Anarco–Capitalistes, lumpenburgesía and the origins of anarchism in Catalonia". ACIS Journal. 7: 50-56.
• 1995. "Anarchism and Illegality in Barcelona, 1931-7". Contemporary European History. 4 (2): 133-151.
• 1998. "From mobilization to civil war. The politics of polarization in the Spanish city of Gijon, 1900-1937". The English Historical Review. 113 (454): 1364-1365.

2000s

• 2005a. "An Imagined Geography: Ideology, Urban Space, and Protest in the Creation of Barcelona's "Chinatown", c.1835–1936" (PDF). International Review of Social History. 50 (3): 373-397. Retrieved 25 March 2026.
• 2007. "'Myths' and the Spanish Civil War: Some old, some exploded, some clearly borrowed and some almost 'blue'" (PDF). journal of Contemporary History. 42 (2): 365-376. Retrieved 25 March 2026.
• 2008a. "Revolution and reaction in Spain". International Socialism (117). 2008. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
• 2008b. "'The Struggle for the Streets': Unemployed hawkers, protest culture and repression in the Barcelona area (c. 1918–1936)" (PDF). Labour History Review. 73 (1): 19-38. Retrieved 25 March 2026.
• 2009a. "Durruti in the Spanish Revolution". Anarchist Studies. 17 (1): 113-117.
• 2009b. "The 'Herodotus of the CNT': Jose Peirats and La CNT en la revolucion espanola". Anarchist Studies. 17 (2): 81-104.

2010s

• 2013a. "A soundtrack to revolution?". Anarchist Studies. 21 (2): 97-101.
• 2013b. "The Emperor's New Clothes: 'Objectivity' and Revisionism in Spanish History" (PDF). Journal of Contemporary History. 48 (1): 191-202. Retrieved 25 March 2026.
• 2014a. "Playing for change: Music and musicians in the service of social movements". Rock Music Studies. 1 (1): 100-102. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
• 2014b. "Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalists in Toulouse: The Red-and-Black Counter-City in Exile". Bulletin of Spanish Studies. 91 (1–2): 95-114.
• 2016. "Book review. Richard Bach Jensen, The battle against anarchist terrorism: An International history, 1878–1934". European History Quarterly. 46 (1): 146-148. 2016.
• 2017. "Social history, (Neo-)revisionism and mapping the 1930s Spanish left". Labor History. 58 (3): 245-270.

2020s

• 2022. "Immense enthusiasm and optimism : 'A Life For Anarchy: A Stuart Christie Reader' [book review]". KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library. 106: 4-5. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
• 2024. "Book review. Arturo Zoffmann Rodríguez. The Spanish Anarchists and the Russian Revolution, 1917–24. Anguish and Enthusiasm.[Routledge/Cañada Blanch Studies on Contemporary Spain, Vol. 30.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2024. vii, 247 pp.£ 135.(E-book:£ 35.99.)" (PDF). International Review of Social History. 69 (3): 554-557. Retrieved 26 March 2026.

Contributions

• 2013. Mintz, Frank. "Prologue". Anarchism and workers' self-managerment in revolutionary Spain. Oakland, California: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-84935-078-5. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
• 2019. Preston, Paul; Mackenzie, Ann L. (eds.). "From the summit to the abyss: The contradictions of individualism and collectivism in Spanish anarchism". The Republic besieged Civil war in Spain 1936-1939. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9781474471763. Retrieved 27 March 2026.

Editorships

• 2001. Valls, José Peirats. The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, Volume 1. Hastings, East Sussex: The Meltzer Press. ISBN 1-901172-07-4. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
• 2005a. Valls, José Peirats. The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, Volume 2. Hastings, East Sussex: Christie Books. ISBN 1-873976-24-0. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
• 2005b. With Richards, Michael. The Splintering of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (PDF). New York: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
• 2006. Valls, José Peirats. The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, Volume 3. Hastings, East Sussex: Christie Books. ISBN 1-873976-29-1. Retrieved 11 October 2025.

Books

• 2005b. Class, culture and conflict in Barcelona 1898-1937 (PDF). Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge. 2005b. ISBN 0-203-49355-9. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
• 2010. Anarchism and the city Revolution and counter-revolution in Barcelona, 1898-1937. Oaklland, California: AK Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-84935-012-9. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
• 2015. Living anarchism José Peirrats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement. Oakland, California: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-84935-238-3. Retrieved 11 October 2025.

References

• Burrowes, Darryl Anthony (2016). Historians at War Cold War influences on Anglo-American representations of the Spanish Civil War (PhD thesis). Flinders University. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
• Durgan, Andy (2005). "Barcelona class war". International Socialism (106). Retrieved 27 March 2026.
• Greene, Nathanael (2006). "The Splintering of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. Ealham, Chris, and Michael Richards, eds.: New York: Cambridge University Press, 282 pp". History: Reviews of New Books. 34 (3). doi:10.1080/03612759.2006.10526884. S2CID 143802016.
• Miguel Capell, Jordi de (3 May 2016). "Chris Ealham, historiador. "Encara fa por la paraula 'anarquisme': els pànics morals segueixen influint"" (PDF). La Directa: 12–15.
• Martínez, Guillem (12 June 2016). "Chris Ealham / Hispanista. "No creo que Podemos ofrezca gran cosa nueva"". CTXT.
• Ortiz, David (2016). "Review of Chris Ealham, Living Anarchism: Jose Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement" (PDF). Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies. 41 (1 (17)): 147-149. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
• Romero Salvadó, Francisco J. (2014). "Investigando el laberinto español en el Reino Unido" (PDF). Stvdia Historica: Historia Contemporánea (32). Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca: 451–462.