The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War

by Peter N. Carroll

Overview

For over half a century, the history of the Abraham Lincoln brigade—the 2,800 young Americans who volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic against General Francisco Franco's rebellion in 1936—has been shrouded in myth, legend, and controversy. Now, for the fist time, we have a comprehensive, objective, and deeply researched account of the brigade's experience in Spain and what happened to the survivors when they returned to the United States. (About one-third of the volunteers died in Spain). The book is largely based on previously unused sources, including the newly opened Russian archives, and more than 100 oral histories.

The author charts the volunteers' motivations for enlisting in the fight against Spanish fascism and places their actions in the context of the Depression era. The battleground experiences of the brigade have never before been depicted in such vivid detail, and such battles as Jarama, Belchite, and the Ebro come alive in the participants' words. The author uses the military aspects of the war to illuminate such related issues as the influence of political ideology on military events and the psychology of a volunteer army. He also closely examines the role of the Communist party in the conduct of the war, including the "Orwell question"—allegations of a Communist reign of terror in Spain—and investigates the alleged racial problems within the brigade, the first fully integrated military unit in American history.

The book continues the saga of the brigade by relating the problems of the surviving volunteers with the U.S. Army during World War II; their opposition to the Cold War, the Vietnam war, and U.S. intervention in Central America; the persecution during the Red Scare of the 1950s; and their involvement with the civil rights movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804722773
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1994
Edition description:	1
Pages:	460
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter N. Carroll is an independent scholar who teaches at Stanford Universityand the University of San Francisco.

Editorial Reviews

"Peter Carroll has written with great skill and understanding the fifty-year story of the Americans who fought in the Spanish civil war. Never has the complicated and intriguing tale been told so fully, drawing as it does not only from survivors who can recount their experiences, but also from a wealth of original material, including the just-opened archives in Moscow. What is particularly fascinating is the account of the tribulations and triumphs of the veterans in the years after they were 'premature anti-fascists.' This is the moment for this book to appear, and one is grateful that it has been done so well."

Stanford University - Peter Stansky

"Compelling . . . swift-moving collective biography of the Lincoln Brigade. . . . A richly detailed story of men and women who threw themselves into the great events of their times, holding nothing back."

New York Times Book Review

"This rare, this astonishing book—rich, authoritative, and moving as it is on its central subject—through Peter Carroll's way of chronicling becomes something even greater: an urgently contemporary touchstone that helps us discern in our time similar contending forces in moral, not political terms—good against evil, might against right, means against ends. In a vivid, pulsing narrative, Carroll encompasses the historical context, the drama of men in battle, and most of all the haunting human beings themselves. But what can be found nowhere else is his account of the succeeding fifty years of those who survived, as they stubbornly clung to their beliefs in the necessity of action and the possibility of transformative social change."

Tillie Olsen

"Peter Carroll has written with great skill and understanding the fifty-year story of the Americans who fought in the Spanish civil war. Never has the complicated and intriguing tale been told so fully, drawing as it does not only from survivors who can recount their experiences, but also from a wealth of original material, including the just-opened archives in Moscow. What is particularly fascinating is the account of the tribulations and triumphs of the veterans in the years after they were 'premature anti-fascists.' This is the moment for this book to appear, and one is grateful that it has been done so well."—Peter Stansky, Stanford University

"This rare, this astonishing book—rich, authoritative, and moving as it is on its central subject—through Peter Carroll's way of chronicling becomes something even greater: an urgently contemporary touchstone that helps us discern in our time similar contending forces in moral, not political terms—good against evil, might against right, means against ends. In a vivid, pulsing narrative, Carroll encompasses the historical context, the drama of men in battle, and most of all the haunting human beings themselves. But what can be found nowhere else is his account of the succeeding fifty years of those who survived, as they stubbornly clung to their beliefs in the necessity of action and the possibility of transformative social change."—Tillie Olsen

"Compelling . . . swift-moving collective biography of the Lincoln Brigade. . . . A richly detailed story of men and women who threw themselves into the great events of their times, holding nothing back."—New York Times Book Review

"Tapping new sources for the first time, this must surely be considered the definitive work on Americans who fought and died for the Spanish Republic."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Carroll ( Keeping Time: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Art of History ) skillfully melds the simple brutality of the Spanish Civil War with the human complexity of the 2800 American volunteers who fought in it from 1937 to 1939. Known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, most of these Americans were Communists who saw themselves as liberators and antifascists. After portraying their diverse, Depression-era backgrounds, Carroll follows them into battle in Spain where one-third died and nearly all were wounded. Almost half had no previous military experience, and the oral accounts of 200 contemporary survivors tell heartbreaking stories of slaughter. Meanwhile, as the U.S. government stressed nonintervention, observers assessed the fight as a ``laboratory for the weapons of the next war.'' Surviving Lincolns returned as outcasts, facing indictments by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and, only through persistent idealism, did the Lincolns sustain their fight and maintain the right to protest publicly. Not until 1965 was the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade removed from the list of subversive organizations, ending 25 years of harassment. The breadth, depth and humanity Carroll depicts set this engrossing work apart from other juiceless war reports. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly