Spain In Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

For three crucial years in the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War dominated headlines in America and around the world, as volunteers flooded to Spain to help its democratic government fight off a fascist uprising led by Francisco Franco and aided by Hitler and Mussolini.

Today we're accustomed to remembering the war through Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and Robert Capa’s photographs. But Adam Hochschild has discovered some less familiar yet far more compelling characters who reveal the full tragedy and importance of the war: a fiery nineteen-year-old Kentucky woman who went to wartime Spain on her honeymoon, a Swarthmore College senior who was the first American casualty in the battle for Madrid, a pair of fiercely partisan, rivalrous New York Times reporters who covered the war from opposites sides, and a swashbuckling Texas oilman with Nazi sympathies who sold Franco almost all his oil — at reduced prices, and on credit.

It was in many ways the opening battle of World War II, and we still have much to learn from it. Spain in Our Hearts is Adam Hochschild at his very best.

“With all due respect to Orwell, Spain in Our Hearts should supplant Homage to Catalonia as the best introduction to the conflict written in English. A humane and moving book."—New Republic

“Excellent and involving . . . What makes [Hochschild’s] book so intimate and moving is its human scale.” — Dwight Garner, New York Times

This landmark work of narrative nonfiction brings the pivotal conflict to life through the eyes of the men and women who risked everything. You’ll discover:

• The American Volunteers: The idealists, including a Kentucky woman on her honeymoon and a college student who became the first American casualty, who joined the legendary Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight fascism years before Pearl Harbor.
• A War of Ideals and Ideology: The gripping accounts of literary giants like Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell on the front lines, and the rival New York Times reporters covering the conflict from opposite sides.
• The Prelude to WWII: How Hitler and Mussolini used Spain as a testing ground for their armies, and how a Texas oilman with Nazi sympathies secretly fueled Franco’s war machine.
• Human-Scale History: A masterfully told account that moves beyond grand strategy to reveal the heartbreaking personal tragedies and profound importance of a noble cause that failed.