Comrades and Commissars: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War

In the summer of 1936, Generalissimo Francisco Franco led a group of right—wing nationalists in a military attack on the Republican government of Spain—the start of what would become the Spanish Civil War. Despite U.S. laws banning participation in foreign conflicts, American volunteers began pouring into Barcelona in January 1937. The most famous of these anti—Franco groups was the band of 2,800 American fighters who called themselves the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. In Comrades and Commissa...