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Brigadistes: Lives for Liberty
'A real treasure that we can't stop exploring' - La Republica
Fanny Schoonhey was said to be the bravest woman in Barcelona. Felicia Browne decided it was time to put down her paintbrushes and pick up a rifle. The Nielsen brothers took three bicycles and pedalled from Copenhagen to the Pyrenees...
In 1936 something extraordinary happened. As the threat of fascism swept across the Iberian peninsula, thousands of people from all over the world left their families and jobs to heed the call - No Pasarán! History has never seen a wave of solidarity like it. The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with the Republic crushed, but the revolutionary dream of the International Brigades has never burnt out.
Through these 60 illustrated profiles, Brigadistes embroiders an epic story of political struggle with the everyday bravery, sorrow and love of those who lived it.
Fanny Schoonhey was said to be the bravest woman in Barcelona. Felicia Browne decided it was time to put down her paintbrushes and pick up a rifle. The Nielsen brothers took three bicycles and pedalled from Copenhagen to the Pyrenees...
In 1936 something extraordinary happened. As the threat of fascism swept across the Iberian peninsula, thousands of people from all over the world left their families and jobs to heed the call - No Pasarán! History has never seen a wave of solidarity like it. The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with the Republic crushed, but the revolutionary dream of the International Brigades has never burnt out.
Through these 60 illustrated profiles, Brigadistes embroiders an epic story of political struggle with the everyday bravery, sorrow and love of those who lived it.
- GenresHistory
160 pages, Paperback
Published March 20, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 7, 2023
The Publisher Says: 'A real treasure that we can't stop exploring'—La Republica (Barcelona)
Fanny Schoonhey was said to be the bravest woman in Barcelona. Felicia Browne decided it was time to put down her paintbrushes and pick up a rifle. The Nielsen brothers took three bicycles and pedalled from Copenhagen to the Pyrenees...
In 1936 something extraordinary happened. As the threat of fascism swept across the Iberian peninsula, thousands of people from all over the world left their families and jobs to heed the call—No Pasarán! History has never seen a wave of solidarity like it. The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with the Republic crushed, but the revolutionary dream of the International Brigades has never burnt out.
Through these 60 illustrated profiles, Brigadistes embroiders an epic story of political struggle with the everyday bravery, sorrow and love of those who lived it.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I read the following in The New York Times's "The Morning" newsletter:
There's no more mainstream voice than the Times. They sort-of define mainstream in US media, whatever you might think of their editorial bias. It is a mainstream outlet, therefore, sounding the alarm about extremism taking over a once-mainstream political party with the support of tens of millions of angry people.
If this isn't ringing every alarm bell you possess, you're not paying attention. Ignoring the very real threat to the entire flawed, screwed-up, but still HUGELY better than dictatorship, electoral representative democracy we're constantly arguing about and trying to improve is unacceptable.
In the 1930s, capitalism failed. The immiseration of millions led to radical action against the banksters and rentiers running the casino economy. They didn't like that. Their response was to beat back reform everywhere they could, and Spain was the test case. Much of the tactical expertise deployed by the Nazis at the start of World War II was honed in their support role during the Spanish Civil War. Fascism's victory there was resisted by fractured, in-fighting groups of very idealistic people. The stories of the thousands of Brigadistes, youthful (usually) volunteer fighters determined to resist the ugliness and viciousness of fascism already on display in Italy and Germany, come into soft focus in this illustrated series of biographical sketches. Because the young people weren't famous, or interesting in and of themselves, they usually left little public trail...barring outliers like Jessica Mitford and Esmond Romilly. The authors don't, then, rely on the usual biographical resources to tell their stories. The journals and letters and scraps of stories here presented are all the more effective for it.
These young people, my parents' ages more or less, believed in their cause of resisting the hegemonic and totaelitarian agenda that defines fascism, enough to go and stake their lives on a foreign country's future. They believed, correctly, that one battle won was one too many in an existential war for freedom, however flawed, versus repression, however seductive its illusion of security.
Young people today are inspiringly angry at their elders again...are vocally angry about our generational failure to confront climate change and economic injustice, and the other manifold disasters we've left them to clean up. This book should remind all the older folk to review their consciences in the face of the crises facing us, remember our moral principles and shun our anger-clouded impulses towards cruelty and, at long last, start doing the right thing.
For younger people, this is your proof that this is a fight worth fighting. Your Great-grandparents fought and lost. You see around you the consequences of that loss. Do not give in to despair! The battle needs fighting, the penalty for inaction is hideous.
Fanny Schoonhey was said to be the bravest woman in Barcelona. Felicia Browne decided it was time to put down her paintbrushes and pick up a rifle. The Nielsen brothers took three bicycles and pedalled from Copenhagen to the Pyrenees...
In 1936 something extraordinary happened. As the threat of fascism swept across the Iberian peninsula, thousands of people from all over the world left their families and jobs to heed the call—No Pasarán! History has never seen a wave of solidarity like it. The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with the Republic crushed, but the revolutionary dream of the International Brigades has never burnt out.
Through these 60 illustrated profiles, Brigadistes embroiders an epic story of political struggle with the everyday bravery, sorrow and love of those who lived it.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I read the following in The New York Times's "The Morning" newsletter:
Many factors have contributed to this {present political} turmoil. Decades of stagnant living standards have caused voter frustration. Social media, along with the rise of a cable television network willing to promote falsehoods, has inflamed discourse. The decline of institutions — churches, labor unions, once-dominant local employers — has left Americans feeling unmoored. And aging political leaders have failed to groom strong successors.
But the single largest source of the chaos is the Republican Party. {...} The Republican Party...is both fractured and increasingly extreme. Tens of millions of Republican voters have embraced beliefs that are simply wrong: that Obama was born in Kenya, that Donald Trump was cheated out of re-election, that Covid vaccines don’t work, that human beings aren’t causing climate change. A crowd of Republican-aligned protesters violently attacked the Capitol in 2021, assaulting police officers and causing several deaths. Prominent Republican politicians, including Trump, have spoken positively about that attack and more generally about political violence.
Kevin McCarthy’s downfall as speaker is the latest sign of the party’s drift toward radicalism. He lost his job because a group of hard-right House members was furious with him for conducting policy negotiations that are inherent to democratic governance. “The ouster captures the degraded state of the Republican Party in this era of rage,” wrote The Wall Street Journal editorial board, a reliable voice of conservatism.— ©David Leonhardt
There's no more mainstream voice than the Times. They sort-of define mainstream in US media, whatever you might think of their editorial bias. It is a mainstream outlet, therefore, sounding the alarm about extremism taking over a once-mainstream political party with the support of tens of millions of angry people.
If this isn't ringing every alarm bell you possess, you're not paying attention. Ignoring the very real threat to the entire flawed, screwed-up, but still HUGELY better than dictatorship, electoral representative democracy we're constantly arguing about and trying to improve is unacceptable.
In the 1930s, capitalism failed. The immiseration of millions led to radical action against the banksters and rentiers running the casino economy. They didn't like that. Their response was to beat back reform everywhere they could, and Spain was the test case. Much of the tactical expertise deployed by the Nazis at the start of World War II was honed in their support role during the Spanish Civil War. Fascism's victory there was resisted by fractured, in-fighting groups of very idealistic people. The stories of the thousands of Brigadistes, youthful (usually) volunteer fighters determined to resist the ugliness and viciousness of fascism already on display in Italy and Germany, come into soft focus in this illustrated series of biographical sketches. Because the young people weren't famous, or interesting in and of themselves, they usually left little public trail...barring outliers like Jessica Mitford and Esmond Romilly. The authors don't, then, rely on the usual biographical resources to tell their stories. The journals and letters and scraps of stories here presented are all the more effective for it.
These young people, my parents' ages more or less, believed in their cause of resisting the hegemonic and totaelitarian agenda that defines fascism, enough to go and stake their lives on a foreign country's future. They believed, correctly, that one battle won was one too many in an existential war for freedom, however flawed, versus repression, however seductive its illusion of security.
Young people today are inspiringly angry at their elders again...are vocally angry about our generational failure to confront climate change and economic injustice, and the other manifold disasters we've left them to clean up. This book should remind all the older folk to review their consciences in the face of the crises facing us, remember our moral principles and shun our anger-clouded impulses towards cruelty and, at long last, start doing the right thing.
For younger people, this is your proof that this is a fight worth fighting. Your Great-grandparents fought and lost. You see around you the consequences of that loss. Do not give in to despair! The battle needs fighting, the penalty for inaction is hideous.
July 16, 2025
Llibre extremadament necessari per a poder mantenir viva la memòria dels molts i moltes brigadistes que van viatjar fins a la península per a combatre el feixisme.
May 18, 2025
El llibre recull 60 mini biografies, o més ben dit historietes o vivències, totes elles d'una pàgina i acompanyades d'una fotografia, sobre 60 persones de diversos indrets del món que van deixar-ho tot per venir a combatre el feixisme al costat de l'exèrcit republicà. Cadascuna d'aquestes persones va aportar el que bonament va poder, així que trobarem des de guerrillers que combaten a primera línia, sergents que han de prendre decisions complicades, doctors i infermeres que es deixen la pell per salvar a tants homes com puguin i, fins i tot, conductores d'ambulàncies que hauran d'esquivar els sots i els obusos.
Vos recoman molt la seva lectura i més ara que hi està havent un augment dels discursos reaccionaris i d'odi!
Vos recoman molt la seva lectura i més ara que hi està havent un augment dels discursos reaccionaris i d'odi!
April 24, 2021
Un bonic homenatge als milers de persones que van decidir deixar-ho tot, arreu del món, per combatre el feixisme a la Península.
Conté un recull d'històries d'una plana, ben documentades i acompanyades d'una fotografia, d'algunes d'aquestes brigadistes.
Històries emotives, admirablement èpiques però dures, en la lluita contra l'amenaça d'un enemic que segueix tan vigent com abans.
Conté un recull d'històries d'una plana, ben documentades i acompanyades d'una fotografia, d'algunes d'aquestes brigadistes.
Històries emotives, admirablement èpiques però dures, en la lluita contra l'amenaça d'un enemic que segueix tan vigent com abans.
November 7, 2022
Brigadistes: Lives for Liberty by Jordi Martí-Rueda and Translated by Mary Ann Newman is an extraordinary window into the heroic and noble lives of those who went to Spain to fight for a beautiful ideal. The book contains 60 short accounts, accompanied by photographs, of what these volunteers experienced. The book is a little unconventional or, perhaps, is guided by literary license. Each account is not a straightforward listing of birth and death dates and other such details, but a descriptive story of the volunteer's experience and often their untimely death. The accounts and the book are brief, but inspiring and memorable.
March 6, 2021
Genial recopilació de vides que es van trobar a la guerra civil. El llibre té històries que podrien ser llibres sencers.
February 4, 2025
With the destructive forces of the Right once again on the rise, this book brings back to life the people who travelled from other parts of the world to fight alongside the Spanish and Catalan against the onslaught of Franco's army. This is neither a detailed history of a vicious war nor a polemic against nazism. It is a collection of vignettes of ordinary people who chose to do extraordinary things.
January 6, 2021
Històries d'una pàgina acompanyades d'una fotografia sobre diferents voluntaris de les Brigades Internacionals que van lluitar pels seus ideals en la Guerra vivil Espanyola. Està bé per poder fer lectures ràpides i poder visualitzar com hi ha persones que ho donen tot per intentar aconseguir un món millor però tampoc és cap obra que vagi més enllà de l'anècdota.
September 3, 2022
Beautiful book that offers snapshots of some of the people that formed the varied group that came together to battle fascism in Spain. The snapshots are often very moving while also taken together as a whole telling the story of the War itself. Potentially not one for those completely unfamiliar with the events of the war but I’d consider it a triumph.
November 22, 2021
Petites històries dels brigadistes de diferents indrest del món que van venir a lluitar en el Guerra Civil Espanyola I AMB FOTOGRAFIES INCLOSSES!!
June 2, 2022
Pell de gallina
January 19, 2023
Imprescindible memòria biogràfica dels voluntaris i voluntàries internacionalistes que van lluitar contra la ignomínia feixista.
May 2, 2023
Pell de gallina.
October 22, 2024
I'd have liked more details and representatives from more countries, but I suppose there's only so much research to be done and documents that have survived.
May 20, 2025
Llibre totalment necessari amb 60 històries de persones que van lluitar per la llibertat durant la Guerra Civil
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews