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Thanks to all of you for good suggestions of books to read about the Spanish Civil War, a subject that has fascinated and bothered the lungs and liver out of me for many years. Like others, I can recommend Homage to Catalonia and The Last Crusade, and another which nobody has mentioned yet, Seven Red Sundays by Ramón José Sender. He, like Orwell, went through various Left metamorphoses before seemingly renouncing ideology or at least party affiliations. His book --- as I remember it --- is a montage of hatred and chaos that engulfed Madrid before the actual oubreak of the war.

My really big recommendation, though is The Cypresses Believe in God by José Maria Gironella, which I am just now reading for a second time.

It covers 1931-1936, covering the chaos (there's that word again) of the pre-war period as it caught up one family in Gerona, a provincial capital in Catalonia. It really illuminates the complexities of the human conflict, and gives --- it seems to me --- a sympathetic and balanced glimpse of all the bewildering multiplicity of factions, anacharist, Catholic, communist, royalist, traditionalist, socialist, liberal, Catalan-nationalist, and more.

Published by Ignatius Press, 800+ pages (and it's just the first of a trilogy!) , can be gotten, used, for under $10 from Amazon.

I think it's tremendous, and really want to read the 2nd and 3rd installments.

Leaves you shaking your head over tormented Spain--- and the tormented human race.