Dr Julius Ruiz's book ‘El terror rojo’ wins Hislibris Prize

Dr Julius Ruiz's ‘El terror rojo’ (‘The red terror’) has been awarded Spain’s prestigious 2012 Hislibris Prize for best history book.

Hislibris is the country’s largest community of history bloggers and its website attracts 200,000 visitors a month.

The prize was awarded at a ceremony held in Carmona near Seville on 3 May.

Changing Spain's national consciousness

European History lecturer Dr Ruiz is the first foreign historian to win the prize. He has changed national consciousness in Spain by challenging orthodox assumptions that Republican terror during the Spanish Civil War was the work of anarchist ‘uncontrollables’.

Instead, Dr Ruiz has shown, Republican extrajudicial terror was organised by revolutionary tribunals.

Best seller

The award comes a month after ‘El terror rojo’ was re-issued as a paperback in Spain.

When first published in 2012, an estimated 2,000 copies were sold in the first month, prompting a reprint. In December, one of the book reviewers for Spain’s second-largest daily newspaper, ‘El Mundo’, said ‘El terror rojo’ was one of the ten best non-fiction books published in 2012.

Cambridge University Press plans to publish an English version of the book.