MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Eloquent tribute to Welsh volunteers who defended democracy in Spanish civil war
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You Are Legend: The Welsh Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War
by Graham Davies
(Welsh Academic Press, £19.99)
“WHEN the years pass by and the wounds of war are staunched... speak to your children. Tell them of these men of the International Brigades,” Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria) pronounced in her farewell address to the International Brigades in Barcelona in November 1938.
Graham Davies is the latest to speak of those men. Despite a seemingly narrow focus on the Welsh men — and two women — who volunteered, the book gives a full account of the causes of the war and its events, while seamlessly weaving the personal stories of the Welsh volunteers into the general history of the brigades.
To give a context to the Welsh brigaders, he begins with a clearly written background to the civil war, highlighting the complexities of the opposing forces, the class struggle between landless peasants and landlords, industrial workers and factory owners, regionalism versus nationalism and anti-clericalism.
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