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SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS

Adam Hochschild

Americans and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

This is a sweeping history of the Spanish Civil War, told through nine American and British characters including Hemingway and George Orwell.
From the acclaimed, best-selling author Adam Hochschild, a sweeping history of the Spanish Civil War, told through a dozen characters, including Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell: a tale of idealism, heartbreaking suffering, and a noble cause that failed. 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. ADAM HOCHSCHILD is the author of seven books. King Leopold's Ghost was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as was his recent To End All Wars. His Bury the Chains was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and PEN USA Literary Award. He lives in Berkeley, California.
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Published 2016-03-29 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Comments

Spain in Our Hearts offers little in the way of new information, except for a fascinating account of Texaco’s crucial role in bankrolling Franco. Hochschild’s contribution lies in the storytelling, his sure command of military history, and his beautiful sense of private hurt, which together yield original insight. An astute observer of contrasts, he navigates the hairpin turns between intimacy and barbarism, euphoria and despair, naivety and cynicism. The book effortlessly hopscotches from global history to individual – and emotional – experience. Read more...

SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS listed as one of the 10 books to read in 2016! Read more...

UK: Macmillan

Hochschild is an exceptional writer; his narrative is well-paced, delivered in clear prose, and focused on important and colorful details of the historical moment. Read more...

Adam Hochschild’s excellent and involving new book, “Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939,” is not primarily a literary or cultural history. It’s about the moral appeal of the war, about the anti-Fascist and frequently pro-Communist idealism that made so many volunteers from the United States and other countries flood into Spain...What makes his book so intimate and moving is its human scale. Mr. Hochschild follows the paths of a handful or two of American (and occasionally English) volunteers, as well as journalists, and tells the larger story of the war through their tribulations. Read more...

Adam Hochschild’s SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS will debut on the New York Times best-seller list at #10 on Sunday April 17th

Ernest Hemingway may be the most famous American who decamped to Spain during the Civil War of the 1930s, but he wasn’t the only one. Hochschild examines the conflict — which led to Franco’s dictatorship — through the eyes of other U.S. nationals whose idealism led them to Europe to fight fascism. Read more...