"In this impressive book James K. Hopkins offers both an innovative new study of the Britishvolunteers in the Spanish Civil War and a penetrating analysis of British radical politics in the 1930s....As a study of the British volunteers, their motivations, and their values, it is unlikely to be bettered. It will be required reading for those who study British involvment ... Read morein the Civil War and it will surely make a forceful contribution to the wider re-evaluation of the role of the Communist Party in the British left of the 1930s."
Twentieth Century British History "Chapters of remarkable richness describe and analyse how going to Spain gave many working class autodidacts a sense of their own worth and, despite the defeat of the Spanish Republic, a belief that they were endowed with potential to change things."
War and History "Hopkins has demonstrated a profound intimacy with his subject. This is an outstanding work, rich indepth and detail, and it deserves to be recognized as a major contribution to the field."American Historical Review "Hopkins's triumph is successfully to document both [the idealism of the British volunteers and the Communist exploitation of it]...to tremendous effect. The idealism, the disillusion, the courage, the ruthlessness, the self-sacrifice, and the self-seeking are put into perspective....He is relentlessly honest. Without a doubt, he has written the best book on British participation in the International Brigades and it is difficult, at this point in time, to see how it will be surpassed."
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