Fallen Sparrows

The International Brigades were some 32,000 foreigners who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Prof. Michael Jackson peels away some myths that have long obscured them. Some of these concern facts such as their numbers, nations, classes, ages, & political affiliations. Others examine their commitment & motivation for taking part in a war that did not directly involve their native lands. The Brigaders were both more complex & simpler than portrayed in propaganda, myth, in history because the men in the ranks were far more varied than any ideological account can accommodate & simpler because theirs was the universal experience of war. The significance of the International Brigades lies less in the ideological convictions that recruited them than in the endurance they displayed once there. Jackson’s goal is to expose some of the mythology & to interpret of the experiences of the Brigadiers.