This was a rough read.

I learned this reading French history in WW2, but it’s hammered in here. Defeat the fascist. Then have the conversation with the communist.

The fascist bad. ( )

Seems to be well-researched. Interesting "listen" but it jumped around a bit too much and made the audio book hard to follow - probably a much better "read" than listen. Overall recommend for WWII readers since this is one of the early conflicts either in or before WII (depending on your perspective). I found the personal stories about medical tactics and relationships more interesting than the leaders and their strategies since the pure politics and war positions jumped around a lot; however, the stories about lovers, and the stories about medical innovations were presented in order which made them easy to follow. Given that, I don't think I got a good sense of the order of the war so much as understanding some of the innovations that occurred. Overall recommend. ( )

“’War is psychologically like hell, supernatural like it and also, as we have been taught to expect, full of good company’”
-Edward Barsky, American surgeon, volunteer

The Spanish Civil War is often viewed as the real beginning of WWII. It has also become something of a touchstone for many Romantics and Idealists. As author Richard Rhodes says in his Introduction to his book Hell and Good Company, ‘[m]any books have been written about the Spanish Civil War’ but it is ’the human stories that had not been told or had not been told completely’ that he chooses to write about.

In 1931, after centuries of rule by the Church, the Aristocracy, and the army, Spain finally became a Republic. In 1936, General Francisco Franco, with the support of Hitler and Mussolini, began a military revolt against this Republic. The war attracted many idealists from elsewhere to aid the new Republic in the struggle. They came from different countries and different walks of life. There were doctors, surgeons, nurses as well as labourers, engineers, writers, artists and WWI vets. Many formed their own brigades including the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the United States. They represented many different political views but they had one thing in common – they were determined to stop fascism. In that, they failed but much of what they did including the art and the literature still inspire today including Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and Picasso’s Guernica. Rhodes recounts their involvement along with other famous and not-so-famous people who were willing to risk it all for idealism, politics and, in more than a few cases, for the adventure.

He also focuses on the medical professionals including Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune whose cobbled together mobile blood units helped reduce the number of casualties in combat and the Catalan doctor Josep Trueta whose method for cleaning, packing and casting wounds saved countless lives and preserved limbs that would have otherwise been amputated. Rhodes describes in fascinating detail the many innovative technologies that these and many other medical professionals developed which are still used today: ‘advances in blood collection, preservation, and storage; in field surgery; in the efficient sorting of casualties’.

InHell and Good Company, Rhodes gives a well-researched, well-written, and fascinating look at the people, both national and international, who fought to preserve the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. He captures the hell of the war, its insanity and its horrors but, most of all he captures the bravery and the idealism of those who volunteered at such great risk to themselves – they were the best of good company. ( )

Hell and Good Company is much more than a history of the Spanish Civil War. Rather, it’s a study of the impact that war had on multiple fields: art, literature, medicine, and war itself. Richard Rhodes offers his usual crisp, engaging prose.

Over the course of this book we meet members of the different international brigades that fought alongside the Republicans. We see significant shifts in medical care, particularly in the storage and transfusion of blood. We follow Picasso’s process composing and painting Guernica. We spend time with George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway.

The Spanish Civil War was, in many ways, a prelude to World War II. The Nationalists received support from Nazi Germany, which both let the Germans experiment with new equipment and tactics and provided a distraction from Nazi maneuvering in Eastern Europe.

If you’re looking for a chronological history of the war, this book will disappoint—but that’s not what it’s intended to be. It’s a book that reflects on the impact of war on many efforts of human endeavor, that examines the war’s influence long after it ended. ( )