In today's New York Times Book Review, Tara McKelvey reviews The Second Son, Jonathan Rabb’s final volume in a trilogy of historical thrillers, set during the Spanish Civil War:
Fascism and anarchy in 1930s Spain combine with romantic entanglement to provide the action ... The Second Son is an unusual blend...
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The Telegraph reports on one of the revelations in the new documentary about Baltasar Garzón, which is premiering at the Berlinale:
A British based neo-Nazi group allegedly plotted to assassinate one of Spain's leading judges over his attempt to investigate the crimes of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Members of...
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Manchester Confidential highlights the Working Class Movement Library:
There’s lots about the volunteers who went out from Manchester in the 1930s to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War – letters home, and the diary of Ralph Cantor from Cheetham Hill who died in Spain aged 21.
More here.
Herbert Sigüenza's one-man show A Weekend with Pablo Picasso opens in Houston this week, Chron reports:
The format is more Picasso just being Picasso - though he does look back at key incidents and works. He tells certain stories, as anyone would in conversation. He tells about his painting Guernica, how it...
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I recently stumbled across a WikiLeaks-like March 1945 letter by FDR to the new US Ambassador in Madrid, saying that the US government will hold its nose and maintain relations with the Franco regime, but that it repudiates the origins and ideology of the regime. Little did I know that this brief archival document...
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Matti Mattson's daughter Ilona and grandson Mischa inform us that a memorial celebration for Matti Mattson will be held on Friday, March 18, 2011, 5:00pm, King Juan Carlos I Center, NYU (55 Washington Square South, New York). No flowers please; contributions in Matti's memory can be sent to ALBA or Veterans for Peace.
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Today I visited NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, which is hosting (until March 26, 2011) a lovely exhibition titled “Concrete Improvisations: Collages and Sculpture by Esteban Vicente.” I was accompanied by Julia Newman, former Executive Director of ALBA, who is also the creator of the film “Into the Fire: American Women and the Spanish Civil...
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"Expel the invader!" Posters contextualize events by inserting them into a series, into a narrative. In a subgroup of Republican Spanish Civil War posters, the struggle of the Republic against the forces of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini is likened to the popular resistance against the French invaders of 1808.
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The wikileaks affaire has given us a glimpse into the private language of diplomacy, into the kinds of things that diplomats say to each other and to their bosses when they think their remarks are off the record. Historians have always placed great value on diplomatic communiqués for precisely this reason, though they usually...
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Under the title History, Memory, Cinema, the Harvard Film Archive is screening a series of documentaries by Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán this month (Feb. 11-21):
Few filmmakers have understood the tremendous potential of cinema to shape historical consciousness as perspicaciously and courageously as Chilean documentarian Patricio Guzmán (b. 1941). In...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. ALBA’s work is inspired by the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Learn more at our website or
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New information about the New Zealand-born Spanish Civil War surgeon Doug Jolly (1904-1983) has emerged following the recent publication of his biography, Frontline Surgeon.
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On September 24, 1945, Dr. Barsky delivered this speech during the Spanish Refugee Appeal rally at Madison Square Garden.
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In 1944, Barsky wrote A Surgeon Goes to War, an 18-chapter memoir of his time in Spain, which was never published but can be consulted at NYU’s Tamiment Library. This is the first chapter.
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Self-effacing and shy though he was, Dr. Edward Barsky’s experience in Spain made him an outspoken activist, tireless organizer, innovative frontline surgeon, and political prisoner. “Eddie is a saint,” Hemingway wrote. “That’s where we put our saints in this country—in jail.”
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The Volunteer is thrilled to honor Dr. Barsky on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.
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For Edward Barsky, political and humanitarian activism were two sides of the same coin. Those who persecuted him begged to differ.
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The time she spent in civil-war Spain loomed large in the life of Martha Gellhorn, the St. Louis-born war journalist. “The truth is that Martha could not stop thinking, feeling, and writing about her Spanish experiences.” “Objectivity bullshit.” That’s what Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) called the journalism of her day. Her letters to personalities like...
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Among the thousands of Jewish volunteers who joined the International Brigades were many descendants of the Sephardim. What was it like for them to “return” to Spain? Three case studies: Lini de Vries, César Covo, and Samuel Nahman, aka Manny Harriman.
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How the 22-year-old Jewish American dancer Janet Riesenfeld performed flamenco to help raise money for the Second Republic under fascist attack.
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Why did Jawaharlal Nehru, future prime minister of India, visit civil-war Spain in 1938? As it turned out, the triangular relationship between Britain, Spain, and India had deep cultural and geopolitical implications.
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ALBA's project to provide a complete list of the more than 2,800 individuals who left from U.S. territory to fight with the Spanish Republic
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