The best books on the Spanish Civil War through oral history and narrative

Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War, on the side of the anti-Franco Republicans, between December 1936 and June 1937. He fought for the Marxist POUM militia in Barcelona and at other flashpoints in Catalonia. As time went on, however, he became disenchanted by the fractures between the different parties on the Republican side—and, in particular, the rise of the Soviet-sponsored Communist line. By the end of the work, though still committed to socialism and the overthrow of Franco’s Nationalists, he is profoundly uneasy about the brand of Communism holding sway—an unease which found subsequent voice in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

First published in 1961, and reissued many times since, The Spanish Civil War remains the single best account of the Spanish Civil War. Thomas was a historian who had served in the British government and whose political allegiances shifted from the Labour to the Conservative party. His seminal work was quickly adopted by the left in Europe and the United States as the go-to work on a legendary clash between the right and left. Despite a few errors and the publication of new accounts, Thomas’s book deserves to be the first on any list like this one. It was banned in Spain until after Franco’s death. Travelers would smuggle copies across the border.

If there was a soap opera in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, it would have been filmed at Madrid’s Hotel Florida where famous foreign supporters of the Republican cause stayed. For a brief time, as it became clear Franco would prevail, armed amateur mercenaries, writers, filmmakers, and journalists, drank and did all they could for the lost cause. The tale of three love affairs, including that of Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, animate this book whose entertaining style masks some insightful passages. Certainly, a book that’s hard to put down.