Spain's Left Critics by JR Campbell;
George Orwell and Spain by Bill Alexander  
Manifesto Heritage, £6

George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is, for many, the defining account of the Spanish Civil War. Although it took up the ideological perspective of just one of the many different factions that participated in that war, and although Orwell’s personal experience of the action was limited to a short stint on a quiet front, Homage to Catalonia has been reissued dozens of times and is on school and university curricula throughout the Western world.  

Orwell’s perspective made its way even further into the popular consciousness as a result of socialist film-maker Ken Loach’s 1995 film Land and Freedom, which unfortunately is based largely on Orwell’s narrative.