The Good Fight Continues: World War II Letters From the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

by Peter N. Carroll, Michael Nash, Melvin Small

Overview

Written with passion and intelligence, the letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in World War II express the raw idealism of anti-fascist soldiers who experienced the war in boot camps, cockpits, and foxholes, but never lost sight of the great global issues at stake.
When the United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941, only one group of American soldiers had already confronted the fascist enemy on the battlefield: the U.S. veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, a volunteer army of about 2,800 men and women who had enlisted to defend the Spanish Republic from military rebels during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). They fought on the losing side.
After Pearl Harbor, Lincoln Brigade veterans enthusiastically joined the U.S. Army, welcoming this second chance to fight against fascism. However, the Lincoln recruits soon encountered suspicious military leaders who questioned their patriotism and denied them promotions and overseas assignments, foreshadowing the political persecution of the postwar Red Scare. African American veterans who fought in fully integrated units in Spain, faced second-class treatment in America's Jim Crow army. Nevertheless, the Lincolns served with distinction in every theater of the war and won a disproportionate number of medals for courage, dedication, and sacrifice.
The 154 letters in this volume, selected from thousands held in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives at NYU’s Tamiment Library, provide a new and unique perspective on aspects of World War II.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814716595
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2006
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Peter N. Carroll is Chair of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War andThe Good Fight Continues: World War II Letters from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (NYU Press, 2006), co-edited with Michael Nash and Melvin Small.

Michael Nash is the director of New York University's Tamiment Library, a special collection documenting the history of labor and radical politics that administers the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.

Melvin Small is Distinguished Professor of History at Wayne State Universityand chair of the university’s Abraham Lincoln Brigade Scholarship Fund. His most recent book is At the Water's Edge: American Politics and the Vietnam War.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 : Before Pearl Harbor
Chapter 2 : At War with the Army
Chapter 3 : Problems in Red and Black
Chapter 4 : In the Combat Theaters
Chapter 5 : Premature Antifascists and the Postwar World
Appendix : Biographical Index of Letter Writers
Bibliography
Index
About the Editors