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    Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
    Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
    Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
    Audiobook15 hours

    Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

    Written by Adam Hochschild

    Narrated by Henry Strozier

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 29, 2016
    ISBN9781501911750
    Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
    Author

    Adam Hochschild

    Adam Hochschild’s first book, Half the Way Home: a Memoir of Father and Son, was published in 1986. It was followed by The Mirror at Midnight: a Journey into the Heart of South Africa and The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin. His 1997 collection, Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels won the PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay. King Leopold’s Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa won the Duff Cooper Prize in the UK, the Lionel Gelber Prize in Canada and was a finalist for the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award in the United States. Bury the Chains: the British Struggle to Abolish Slavery was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. To End All Wars: a Story of Protest and Patriotism in the First World War, was published by Macmillan in 2011. His books have been translated into twelve languages. Hochschild teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and has been a Fulbright Lecturer in India. He lives in Berkeley with his wife, the sociologist and author Arlie Hochschild. They have two sons and one grandchild.

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    Reviews for Spain in Our Hearts

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Well researched and refreshingly (and unexpectedly, given Adam Hochschild’s leftist political orientation and pedigree) as fair and as objective a rendition of the American experience during the Spanish Civil as is probably possible given the emotional complexities surrounding this event on history.
    • 4/5
      Very well researched and relayed. The Spanish Civil War is probably one of the most truly tragic events I've read much about.
    • 3/5
      Stories of the Americans who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War (with occasional reference to the more famous foreign correspondent, Orwell, whose experiences were overlapping). And, also, stories of the Americans who, in safety, supported fascism, especially Texaco, whose free hand with supplies and information gave Franco significant advantages in the war.
    • 5/5
      I first got interested in George Orwell when I read his "Homage to Catalonia", a book I have returned to many times. I always wondered about the other international volunteers who went to Spain to fight for the Republic. Adam Hochschild's meticulous research has satisfied a good deal of that curiosity. Hochschild sets the stage with a brief summary of events that lead to the revolt soon led by Franco, and adds context with depictions of the interest and aid offered to each side by the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany. He also uses first person narratives to take readers into the trenches and battles, as well as into the hospitals, of the Republican side. After finishing the book, I understood much better the history of the Spanish Civil War and the place it held, maybe still holds, in the hearts of my parents' generation.
    • 5/5
      This is one of those (many) eras of world history about which I knew less than the Wikipedia entry could tell me. To hear of how Spain's civil war fits into European history, at least back deep into the 19th century, and forward to the mid 1990s (and even in the recent global recession) was semi-mind-blowing. On top of all that information, the choices as a historian and narrator than the author chooses--lots of primary source work and choosing to follow closely individual Americans fighting and writing about the war--were all-around excellent.
    • 2/5
      An incredibly slanted version of the Spanish Civil War (SCW). I expected better perhaps from a guy who has somewhat of a 'reputation'. But this is a history wrapped inside a viewpoint that is never far from the surface. It starts early on page xix of the forward...the 'Soviet Union, whose government was at least as murderous as the Franco regime'. I nearly stopped reading the book right there. The Soviets had murdered 5 million or so by 1936 when the SCW began and continued on with another 5 or 10 million..who knows? Many died early in a Communist created famine in the Ukraine in 1932-33 when American leftists like the author's hero Robert Merriman were slathering over themselves in adulation of that ideology. Nauseating. Pretty sure I would rather be shot than starved to death along with my family. So for a supposedly serious historian to start out with such an obscene comparison was daunting. The worst estimates of the Franco regime are around 200,000 wiped out. That was a good year in the Soviet Gulags. I guess the Solzhenitsyn is not required reading for Berkley historians. Throughout the entire book he dwells almost entirely and with loving detail on Nationalist atrocities of which there were a horrific number without a doubt. Republican atrocities on the other hand are usually handled in one brief paragraph and almost always with mitigating circumstances. Had the Republicans won does anyone (except perhaps this author) doubt for a second that their retaliation would have been anything less than the Nationalists? By 1938 the Communists ran the Republican effort--their track record elsewhere suggests that the bloodletting would have been every bit as violent as what actually happened on the other side. Even while retreating nearly the whole war the Republicans managed about 1/3 of what the Nationalists inflicted.But I persisted and there were useful insights here and here, hence I gave it another star. I do not recommend this for one uninitiated into the SCW, although sadly it will be for many. Hugh Thomas and Anthony Beevor are far superior and are actual history books. The best thing about this book for American readers is the American connection of course and that is what rescues the book from the trash heap of pure propaganda. There are many sad and poignant tales of idealistic Americans (and others) who went over and fought for the Republican side. Interesting tales of Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Virginia Cowles and other are the best parts of the book, and of course Eric Blair (George Orwell!). And 'fake news' (from both sides) turns out to be not a new thing. He extols the International Brigades at some length and the retelling of some actions are both riveting and horrifying. It must be said that most of those volunteers were following an American Communist Party that worshiped at the altar of Soviet Communism that was already carrying out mass murder on a scale that is still mind-boggling. The evidence was there, but they chose to ignore it. Especially educated men like Merriman who had spent years in Russia. The author's endless attempts to garner sympathy or respect for that man left me cold. He and his like were just more enablers for the Gulag and I doubt shed a tear for the millions annihilated by it. They died in Spain supporting it, though some will see it differently.
    • 4/5
      In general, an overview of the course of the Spanish Civil War, with an emphasis on the American volunteers who fought for the leftist Spanish Republic. The author is clearly writing from a point of view that is sympathetic to the left (he talks about "social justice" in his introduction), though to his credit he does not shirk from noting what Stalin was doing in Spain through his intermediaries. A running theme is the perfidy of Texaco (which sold oil on credit to Franco, and engaged in dubious intelligence practices) and the Catholic Church. Luckily, the progressive point of view isn't oppressive, and you can enjoy the book on its merits. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      At the end of the book in the chapter title "Kaddish," a niece of one of the fallen volunteers of the International Brigade visits the area where her uncle was last seen:"...somehow I managed to say kaddish for this son, brother, uncle. All this brought up enormous emotion. It hardly seemed just my own, or my family's. It felt part of a universal sorrow for the human struggle that played out in Spain during those dark days that were just the beginning of the trauma and tragedy that overcame all of Europe and throughout the world..."This book is the story of the American men and women who volunteered in the Spanish Civil War. Hochschild did a tremendous amount of research for this book, bringing alive these people through their letters and diaries. He also draws on the reporters and writers who were there; and we learn about the inspiration for [For Whom the Bell Tolls]. The use of letters and diaries really bring the people to life.He also does a great job of putting the struggle in context. He addresses questions of whether WWII would have occurred if the Allies had helped the Republic and whether the Republic would have become a satellite of the Soviet Union. We all know how it ends, yet as I finished this book, I had tears in my eyes, saddened that the idealism of the men and women who volunteered was not supported or honored during their lives. It's also sad to see that many things don't change; governments are still run by expediency rather than by morality. Franklin Roosevelt, whom I admire, knew it was right to support the Republic, but didn't want to lose voters. Media didn't tell the whole story, and corporations - Texaco here -- made a lot of money off the suffering of others. So, this story is relevant.This is the best kind of narrative nonfiction. And there are plenty of helpful maps and pictures. Wonderful, wonderful book.
    • 4/5
      Spain in Our Hearts declares up front it is not a history of the Spanish Civil War. Rather it is a series of vignettes about various Americans who went to fight with the International Brigades. The material is culled from period newspapers and private diaries. The people range from obscure teenagers to Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell (who is not American hmm). It is narrated in roughly chronological order so people are dropping in and out at various points as the material for their stories becomes available or gaps appear. There is no main character, no mystery driving it forward, just interesting short scenes that come and go. These "group biographies" are not my favorite form of non-fiction nevertheless it is a testament (indeed monument) to the variety of experiences during the war. I have very little knowledge of the war and this provided useful summary of events and the role played by foreign fighters.