History and Legend: Writing the International Brigades

Stradling (emeritus history, Cardiff U.) examines the processes that invested the anti-fascist International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, with such a grand history and legend. Heartfelt sympathy for the besieged Spanish Republic and the volunteers that converged from around the world to defend her was not left to chance, he says. Looking mainly at English writing, he explores various cases of writers who were driven to seek some positive association with the Brigades, and seeks to uncover often marginal but always intense clashes of political principle, personal feelings, propaganda, gender, clique, and class in which dozens of writers were caught up. Distributed in the US by Independent Publishers Group. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR