"Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War" Topic

Thanks for this.

I read it a week or so ago. It was very good, I highly recommend it.

A smorgasbord of excellent writers and interesting characters. I found this an easy read. It includes W. H. Auden and John dos Passos. There are no Spanish writers. It is all told from a partisan foriegners viewpoint.

I read it during at trip to Florida back in April. It's release was fortuitous in that it coincided with my working on a bunch of SWC figures for Chain Of Command.

As other noted it was an interesting read and quite well written. My only small gripe was that there was not even an attempt at being unbiased in telling the story. You would get page upon page of accounts of atrocities committed by the Nationalists with very little similar mention of similar excesses by the Republicans. To his credit, the author admits his personal bias up front in the introduction. (something that is a rarity) But the one sided nature of the account is pretty jarring.

But all in all, a good book with lots of interesting vignettes.

"You would get page upon page of accounts of atrocities committed by the Nationalists with very little similar mention of similar excesses by the Republicans. "

Look at the difference in scale, and the motivation to understand the difference. Look at what happened in Sevilla as soon as the rebellion began. Where in Republican Spain did similar massacres occur? For a quick introduction link Note that these weren't reprisals, weren't repression of rebels, or repression of potential enemies, but wholesale massacres of those who were regarded as supporting the legitimate democratically elected government.
Even historians whose views are right of centre, such as Anthony Beevor support the view that the Francoists murdered many many more than the Republicans Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain; The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. Penguin Books. 2006. London. ISBN 0-14-303765-X.