The Lincoln Brigade: A Picture History (Third Edition)
Preface by Robin D. G. Kelley
The day after Christmas, 1936, a group of ninety-six Americans sailed from New York to help Spain defend its democratic government against fascism. Ultimately, twenty-eight hundred United States volunteers reached Spain to become the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
Few Lincolns had any military training. More than half were seriously wounded or died in battle. Most Lincolns were activists and idealists who had worked with and demonstrated for the homeless and unemployed during the Great Depression. They were poets and blue-collar workers, professors and students, seamen and journalists, lawyers and painters, Christians and Jews, blacks and whites. The Brigade was the first fully integrated United States army and Oliver Law, an African American from Texas, was an early Lincoln commander.
William Loren Katz and Marc Crawford twice traveled with the Brigade to Spain in the 1980s, interviewed surviving Lincolns on old battlefields, and obtained never published documents and photographs for this book.
Reviews of the First Edition
“. . . A firsthand, first-rate work of non-fiction . . .” (Publishers Weekly)
“handsome . . . substantial text . . . many photos never before . . . published.” (NY Times Book Review)
“These unsung heroes will have a special appeal for young people . . . deprived of so much of our history.” (Studs Terkel)
“. . . [An] important book on an often overlooked period of history that affected many Americans.” (School Library Journal)
“Text and photographs will draw young people interested I the period and in those who fought for the democratic ideal.” (Booklist)