Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and The World It Made

a review by Ron Capshaw (May 2015)

Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and The World It Made
by Richard Rhodes
Simon & Schuster, 2015
320 pages

Which 20th century war involved the gang rape and castration of POWS? Massacres of villages from the air? Desecration of churches? Military revolts? Communist backing?

The House Un-American Activities Committee, a Congressional body tasked with investigating extremist movements and a particular target in the post-War period of the American Left, nevertheless became the only venue for American Loyalists protesting the Communist behind-the-lines executions of their comrades. Such is the lingering politicization of the Spanish Civil War, that Rhodes can only take his technical wonkery so far.

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Ron Capshaw is a writer in Midlothian, Virginia.

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