Homage To Catalonia

George Orwell

• Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
• Year: 1969
• Print ISBN:
  9780544382046
• eBook ISBN:
  9780547416175
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

A National Review Top Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Century

"One of Orwell's very best books and perhaps the best book that exists on the Spanish Civil War."—The New Yorker

In 1936, originally intending merely to report on the Spanish Civil War as a journalist, George Orwell found himself embroiled as a participant—as a member of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unity. Fighting against the Fascists, he described in painfully vivid and occasionally comic detail life in the trenches—with a "democratic army" composed of men with no ranks, no titles, and often no weapons—and his near fatal wounding. As the politics of anti-fascism became tangled, Orwell was pulled into a heartbreaking conflict between his own personal ideals and the complicated realities of political power struggles.

Considered one of the finest works by a man V. S. Pritchett called "the wintry conscience of a generation," Homage to Catalonia is both Orwell's powerful eyewitness account of his experiences at the front and his tribute to those who died in what he called a fight for common decency. This edition features a new foreword by Adam Hochschild placing the war in greater context and discussing the evolution of Orwell's views on the Spanish Civil War.

"No one except George Orwell ... made the violence and self-dramatization of Spain so burning and terrible."— Alfred Kazin, New York Times

"A wise book, one that once read will never be forgotten."—Chicago Sunday Tribune

Orwell's account is a masterclass in political and military journalism—a firsthand report on the moments that defined a generation.

• A Journalist at War: Follow Orwell from his initial role as a reporter to his enlistment in a "democratic army" with no ranks, no titles, and often no weapons.
• Political Infighting: Witness the heartbreaking conflict between revolutionary ideals and the brutal realities of power struggles that pitted anti-Fascist allies against one another.
• The Aragón Front: Experience the mud, cold, and grim comedy of life in the trenches through the eyes of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers.
• A Fight for Common Decency: Discover why Orwell saw the war not just as a clash of ideologies, but as a tribute to the ordinary soldiers fighting for a principle he refused to abandon.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Epigraph
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapter VII
• Chapter VIII
• Chapter IX
• Chapter X
• Chapter XI
• Chapter XII
• Appendix I
• Appendix II
• About the Author
• Footnotes