Description
The Spanish Civil War served as an ideological and physical battleground for visionary Americans wishing to combat the spread of fascism. Harry Fisher was one such idealist who became a solider in the famed Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American contingent of international volunteers dedicated to defeating Franco's forces. Fisher was one of the earliest American volunteers and one of the few to participate in all the major battles. Under a barrage of shells, bombs, and bullets for eighteen months, he lost his illusions about war's efficacy in solving political issues. To this day a despondence often overwhelms him when he recalls a family photograph he found jutting from the pocket of a slain fascist soldier. His involvement taught him that up close, the dead, whether fascist soldiers or his own fallen comrades, looked alike. This is a war story, simply told. Yet it is also a complex story about a young man testing his ideology in the harsh realities of battle.
A memoir of nineteen months in Spain by a volunteer
About the Author
Harry Fisher has been a department store worker, a seaman, a labor activist, and an engineer gunner on a B-26. For many years he served as chief of communications for the TASS news agency in New York City.
Reviews
"[A] welcome addition to the literature of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade's involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Honest, straightforward, and moving, it shares with us the struggles of an idealist among the shifting politics and brutal realities of an ideological war."-John Sayles
"The Abraham Lincoln Brigade story is beautifully and movingly told."-Lena Horne
"Sheds much-needed light with warmth and passion. A wonderful story. And wonderfully he tells it."-Ossie Davis
"A simple account, concentrating mainly on the daily hardships and danger faced by individual Brigaders, and the banter and grumbling which were necessary survival tactics in desperate military situations. Every additional memoir of this kind tells us a little more about those who risked their lives in Spain."-Times Literary Supplement
"Fisher's book is important for its acute descriptions of life in the International Brigades, and it surely will capture the attention of its readers."-Choice
Book Information
ISBN 9780803268999
Author Harry Fisher
Format Paperback
Page Count 211
Imprint University of Nebraska Press
Publisher University of Nebraska Press
Weight(grams) 340g
A memoir of nineteen months in Spain by a volunteer
About the Author
Harry Fisher has been a department store worker, a seaman, a labor activist, and an engineer gunner on a B-26. For many years he served as chief of communications for the TASS news agency in New York City.
Reviews
"[A] welcome addition to the literature of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade's involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Honest, straightforward, and moving, it shares with us the struggles of an idealist among the shifting politics and brutal realities of an ideological war."-John Sayles
"The Abraham Lincoln Brigade story is beautifully and movingly told."-Lena Horne
"Sheds much-needed light with warmth and passion. A wonderful story. And wonderfully he tells it."-Ossie Davis
"A simple account, concentrating mainly on the daily hardships and danger faced by individual Brigaders, and the banter and grumbling which were necessary survival tactics in desperate military situations. Every additional memoir of this kind tells us a little more about those who risked their lives in Spain."-Times Literary Supplement
"Fisher's book is important for its acute descriptions of life in the International Brigades, and it surely will capture the attention of its readers."-Choice
Book Information
ISBN 9780803268999
Author Harry Fisher
Format Paperback
Page Count 211
Imprint University of Nebraska Press
Publisher University of Nebraska Press
Weight(grams) 340g
