Homage to Catalonia

By George Orwell

A first-hand account of the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, straight from the pen of one of the twentieth century’s most renowned authors.
 
In 1936, George Orwell enlisted with a left-wing Spanish militia organization, The Workers’ Part of Marxist Unification, out of a combined desire to fight against fascism and to record the events of the war. He fought against the fascist forces for several months, before infighting among the various left-wing groups turned him against former allies, and eventually forced him to flee the country. Homage to Catalonia is a vivid, intensely personal retelling of these events.
 
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781551998763

George Orwell

George Orwell (1903–1950), the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, was an English novelist, essayist, and critic. He was born in India and educated at Eton. After service with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, he returned to Europe to earn his living by writing. An author and journalist, Orwell was one of the most prominent and influential figures in twentieth-century literature. His unique political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with the dystopia of 1984 (1949), which brought him worldwide fame. 

Reviews for Homage to Catalonia

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Getuigenis van eigen deelname aan de Spaanse burgeroorlog periode 1936-1937; nogal onbevangen en daardoor heel waardevol; geleidelijk inzicht in de nefaste tweestrijd communisten-anarchisten. Vooral documentair interessant

[madepercy-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as a gift at around the same time as I had started Hemingway's "The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War". I must say I was impressed by Orwell's (or should I say Blair's) writing style as it seemed very distant from 1984. I found it difficult to put Homage down despite being very busy with work and other pressing issues. Nevertheless, I intend to explore the rest of Orwell's work. It is a real shame that he died at such a young age. One can only wonder whether such genius had more to offer or otherwise simply ran out of steam. Regardless, I am rather grateful for being gifted such an important work.

[eglinton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another gap year for George: intensity of comradeship in the volunteer militias of the Spanish Civil War, satisfying despite the shambles of the fighting itself. Street fighting in Barcelona was so commonplace in that era, we're told, that they ought to have numbered the paving stones to aid the putting up and taking down of barricades. Orwell hones his plain writing, truth-telling style, and throws in some of his choice punchy observations: "Nothing will convince a Spaniard, at least a young Spaniard, that fire-arms are dangerous." The episode was genuinely transformative for Orwell's politics, as the determinedly classless society he found in the Barcelona of mid-late 1936 ("where the working class was in the saddle") added the force of lived experience, and a touch of sentiment, romance almost, to his socialism.

[erinspragg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This classic piece of Orwellian journalism documents his experience fighting in the Spanish Civil War in his typically witty and sardonic style. From being shot in the throat to evading capture from enemy troops Orwell questions what it means to fight for a political cause and explores the complexities surrounding the political allegiances of both sides.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Getuigenis van eigen deelname aan de Spaanse burgeroorlog periode 1936-1937; nogal onbevangen en daardoor heel waardevol; geleidelijk inzicht in de nefaste tweestrijd communisten-anarchisten. Vooral documentair interessant

[nmele_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read Homage to Catalonia in college,more than forty years ago. It was a seminal book for me and lead me to read everything by Orwell I could find. When my book club decided to read this, I was overjoyed but a little worried that it would not live up to my memory of it. In fact, it is better than I remembered. As a college student, I plowed uncomprehending through the chapters on the politics of the Loyalists, but this time around I found them fascinating. I had also forgotten how well Orwell depicts the boredom and the perils of warfare at the front. And then there is his affectionate depictions of the Spaniards and foreigners with whom he fought.

[histreader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have picked up this book several times in the past but never read it. Recently, I decided to give it a try. I like George Orwell's writing style and was interested in learning about the Spanish Civil War. Aside from struggling through a book which is a collection of journalistic criticisms of art I am not familiar with, I have only read the classic fictional offerings by Orwell.For the most part, Homage to Catalonia was a riveting read and he did a fair job with conveying the lack of clarity borne from the numerous factions fighting a common enemy. The turmoil of political goals knows no wing, even when faced with an enemy to unite against. Who knew the Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists of the 1930s would be so radically different? In spite of being a political junkie, I most enjoyed the retelling of the "battle field" escapades. Not to promote grandiose illusions of his part in the fight against Fascism, Orwell really illustrates the boredom he encountered and the monotony he and his comrades experienced with a near constant rain of bullets.What was less interesting (although historically important) was his chapter providing a vague understanding between the factions and how internecine battles, both in the press and in guerrilla warfare, crumbled an effective battle against the standing government and dashed any hopes of a seamless utopia after the war. Not reading this book for academic purposes, I skimmed the chapter which includes numerous citations and examples of slanderous press reporting about either side.

[markfinl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is probably my least favorite George Orwell book, but it's not a bad book, but it has lost its relevance. Seventy some years later, the details of the Spanish Civil War don't have much interest for a modern reader.

[technodiabla · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I admire Orwell's journalism and his approach to getting the real story; Homage to Catalonia is a perfect example. I found the story of the trenches and the Barcelona uprising fairly interesting and well-written. His political analysis is extremely complex and gets bogged down in details and acronyms that aren't entirely relevant to today's reader's understanding of the situation. That said, I did find his views on how journalism and the global media forces influenced the war to be insightful and very relevant. Media has changed quite a bit-- not for the better in many cases. This books makes for interesting fodder to compare and contrast and pros and cons of different forms of media and regulatory models. HtC is an important book and worthy of study, but not an enjoyable read in my opinion. 3.5 stars.

[wethewatched · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Did you know George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War? Like a lot of people, I only really knew Orwell for 1984 and Animal Farm. Reading this account of the author's experience fighting Franco and fascism offers great context for other works while also illuminating all the confusion and propaganda from this 20th Century war. Orwell writes in an accessible way, effectively conveying his own outrage at the events of the war but also his fondness for the Spaniards. Worth a read for all Orwell fans and war history buffs.

[william345 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book full of the stink and horror of war. The accounts of the Republic's assaults on the Falange are, save for one instance, pitiful and sickening. Descriptions, too, of Madrid during the conflict the likes of which I have come across nowhere else. Exquisite and appalling. Read with Hugh Thomas's The Spanish Civil War.

[carterchristian1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My daughter participated in Ciudad Eagles in Spain in 2011 ( an organization that pears English speakdes with Spanish wanting to learn English through participation through general discussion. No topic was off limits but one....the Civil War. It was not to be mentioned, iti is still so sensitive with curremt citizens of Spain..Orwell went to fight the facists. Probably one of the verey best on the Civil

[booklove2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Holy crud!! George Orwell was shot in the neck just missing his windpipe in the Spanish Civil War. Imagine... this happened BEFORE he wrote '1984'!! What if the world did not have '1984'?!?! It is an essential piece in literature and I'm sure the entire world would be just like his cautionary book if he had never written it.Anyway, I don't think I ever heard about the Spanish Civil War in school (no surprise there). This was a very interesting and readable account of it though. The only thing is, I wish there were more explanatory foot notes!! Orwell really wants to get the truth out on certain events that happened in Spain. He really doesn't pick a side (other than anti-fascist) until one faction within the anti-fascist side is used as a scapegoat. All of this is just so new to me... in school I was taught the same basic things every year (ie: 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue) hence making history very boring for me in school. So it is really interesting when I read books about historical events that I didn't know about. This one is just so readable and interesting (and he even finds the humor in such horrible situations!) Reading it is like sitting down with a veteran and hearing the words right from Orwell himself. He is also a huge book lover -- he was laying in the trenches close to the enemy at one point and reading a book... while both sides are shooting at each other. I wish George Orwell was involved in all the major wars so he could have written a book for each war. Just as long as I was guaranteed that he would be alive to eventually write '1984'!!!

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Orwell's chronicle of the lessons he learned fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He enters thinking he is fighting the Fascists, he leaves disillusioned and branded as a traitor. A book that defines Orwell. Personal, brutally truthful and a book that strips away all the supposed romance of war. "The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency."

[kvrfan9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Homage to Catalonia excels in two ways: in providing a first-hand, "you are there" account of what life was like in Barcelona and at the front in the Spanish Civil Way, and in giving insight into the man who became the author of 1984 and Animal Farm.

On the former: George Orwell (real name, Eric Blair) volunteered to fight with the militia against Franco's forces in the war, and--as was also evident in Down and Out in Paris and London--he knows how to write a sensual narrative. The sights, sounds, and smells he describes bring the scenes and experiences to life. As my exposure to Homage to Catalonia was through an audiobook, I felt like I was in the presence of a gifted raconteur. (Kudos to the one reading Orwell's words. I thought I was with Orwell himself.)

On the latter: those with a simplistic understanding of the Spanish Civil War understand it to have been a proxy war between Hitler (supporting Franco) and Stalin (supporting the Nationalists). It was not that simple, especially on the anti-Franco side. There were many factions resisting Franco. In the end, the Soviet-supported factions ended up commandeering the Nationalist side, but that was only after heavy-handed assaults against competing factions.

Orwell fought against Franco and he was an admitted socialist, but he was no Communist. He deplored totalitarianism of any kind. But he also admits he was not much of a political thinker before his Spanish involvement, and as his was a faction that became a target for Soviet-backed persecution and brutality, it's likely his experiences in Spain that help mold him to produce his later thinly-disguised anti-Soviet allegories. In Homage to Catalonia, he intersperses his narrative chapters with those he labels his "political" ones, in which he describes all the complex factional infighting that was going on within the anti-Franco crowd. As all the factions were known by their initials, there are moments in these chapters where the reader can feel he is drowning in alphabet soup, but they do give a richer texture to what was keeping Spain in turmoil even far from the battlefront.

I have heretofore had only a cursory understanding of the Spanish Civil War myself. Coming away from Homage to Catalonia, I feel like a need to learn more.

[tronella_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the guys on my course lent this to me: it's an autobiographical account of the author's experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Very easy to read, despite not knowing much about the period in question; he kindly separates the political analysis from the rest of the books and asks you to feel free to skip those chapters. I believe that in later editions these two chapters are moved to the end to be appendices, but I read them where they were originally placed. These parts took me much longer to get through due to the vast number of acronyms, but were interesting nonetheless.I thought he got across very well the way that events differed from their official versions, the general dullness of most parts of war, the problems of organisation and administration and so on, although he says at several points that he doesn't think he's doing it justice. It was interesting to me that the book ends before the war does; I looked up some more about it online afterwards.

[cestovatela · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell is good enough that I'm glad I read it but not so good that I'd recommend it to friends who don't have a specific interest in Orwell's life. In 1936, a young Orwell went to Barcelona to report on the Spanish Civil War. Within a few days of arriving, he'd joined a socialist militia and went to the front. I enjoyed the clipped, stiff-upper-lip writing style that had few superfluous words and I learned a bit about a historical event I hadn't heard much about before. Orwell's experiences dodging rats in the trenches and his near-arrest by the corrupted leadership of the movement he'd once supported no doubt informed later works like 1984 and Animal Farm, and I liked seeing what helped shaped one of this century's most famous writers. Still, the actual political situation was poorly explained and the writing was not as vivid as it could've been. I give it three stars.

[debnance_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love history, but I tend to shyaway from war narratives; I getlost in the details about weaponsand strategies. Homage to Cataloniais a different kind of war narrative,the story of a man who never glamorizedwar (except, perhaps, when he enlisted).I loved the chapters about day-to-daylife. I can just see the generals andadmirals telling Orwell, "Don't tell themthat!" I found myself wanting to postchapters to young American men I know servingin Iraq and asking if Orwell's experiencesin the Spanish Civil War rang true for them.Recommended.

[theboylatham_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

9/10. eBook.

An account of Orwell's time spent in the anarchist militia during the Spanish Civil war. From his experiences in the front-line with the rag tag troops to being under attack by the communist goverment while in Barcelona intermingled with an explanation of the wider political forces involved in the conflict. Funny and informative, it's a very casual look at a little discussed war.

[blake.rosser · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Orwell's account of his experience fighting for the Anarchist group POUM during the Spanish Civil War is surprisingly compelling. This is mostly due to the understated way in which he narrates the book. To be sure, he is recounting extraordinary events, but in a voice so modest and casual that you can't help but be seduced. His political analysis and truth-seeking are refreshing, and in the midst of several acrimonious factions he appears uniquely able to maintain objectivity.

Overall, he writes with such sincerity and earnestness -- freely admitting when he can't hope to adequately express the emotional impact of a certain situation, or warning you of his potential bias -- that I would bet against being able to find another work of literature that more realistically conveys the insanity of war. The fact that Orwell is an Everyman -- idealistic, afraid, and by no means a born soldier -- only heightens the impact. His modesty is inspiring in that you can easily imagine yourself in his shoes.

When it was written, this book formed part of a growing contingent of anti-Stalinist literature. For that reason and the political circumstance of WWII (in which Russia was badly needed as an ally), the book was suppressed and/or ignored by most of the Western world. Decades later, after it has gained in popularity, we can see that Orwell's was one of the few voices of reason during that era. As a book, Homage is a greatly entertaining read. As an artifact of pre-WWII Europe, it is priceless.

[jpe9 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Others have noted that lessons Orwell gleaned from his experiences in Spain fighting Franco in 1937 are applicable in areas of military conflict today. I found the explication of the various political factions allied against Franco confusing, but Orwell's first-person account of his experiences in the street-fighting in Barcelona and at the front near Huesca are strong. The powerfully ironic and foreshadowing final passage of the book is worth getting to. This book was recommended by a friend of mine for anyone planning a visit to Barcelona. I did not actually read the Kindle edition. I read the Harvest paperback available through my local public library consortium :-)

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Orwell's memoir of his service fighting in leftist militia in the Spanish Civil War. "A comic opera with an occasional death." Dangers of extremist politics. Great story telling. It's all here.

[br77rino · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Orwell's recounting of his days as a soldier with the Spanish fighting against Franco, on the one hand, and even a bit against the Communists, on the other.

[scriberpunk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When I was about fourteen or fifteen I did a holiday homework history project on the Spanish Civil War. It made a big impression on me. On the first day back at school I sought out the other boy who had done his project on the same subject. Patrick Drumgoole. Now that’s name I haven’t thought of in a very long time. Full of the injustice of it all I ranted about the way the Spanish government had been left to the slavering Italian and German wolves by the lily livered democratic soon-to-be-allies, only to find he was delighted at the way the dangerous left wing anarcho-commies had been defeated by the Catholic forces of (the) right. It was the first time I had ever really encountered a political debate. If you can call telling Patrick Drumgoole he was a f**king t**t a political debate. George Orwell’s experience of the Spanish Civil War, as recounted in Homage To Catalonia, seemed to have made a similarly big impression on him, albeit his was a lot more ‘first hand’ than mine in that he was actually there, being shot at whilst I was at home, er, not being shot at. Patrick Drumgoole wasn’t even a particularly big bloke. His story is of the ‘War is Boring, Cold, Hungry, Dirty and Irritating’ kind, rather than the ‘War Is Hell’ kind. Even when recounting going over the top or actually being shot he doesn’t make it sound actually frightening. In fact the time spent behind the lines, on leave, in Barcelona where political in-fighting between the anarchists and communists led to a civil war within a civil war and a virtual police state sounded a lot more frightening. Which could explain a lot about his later fiction.

[alexgalindo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this novel Orwell achieves an aesthetic rarely matched in even the most vivid fiction. His dry humor and honesty dances right on beat with his romanticism of radical politics.(a romance I share myself.) Staged in the critical years of the Spanish Civil War, Orwell doesn't merely write of the events of the day, he fully participated in them. A remarkably inspiring piece of literature.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've never fully understood how the Spanish Civil War came about, or really who could be said to have won it. I've read Hemingway's 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' and there are allusions to the period in some of the other novels I've read, but Orwell's account comes closest to filling in the gaps.I most enjoyed the portions of the book that told about Orwell's own memories and experiences of the war. His writing is accessible and dramatic, and he paints a vivid picture of what he thought was going on around him. Although I appreciated his political discourses, I found that they were not terribly helpful, though this should be no surprise - the Spanish Civil War was very possibly the most confusing conflict of the 20th century.

[keylawk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the book that caused Orwell to be reviled by The Left -- by the intelligentsia that wanted to forgive the communists their little excesses, their little purges.

[vaellus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Orwell was an excellent journalist, lucid writer and determined truth-seeker as this book about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War attests.

[tikitu1reviews · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Disappointing. Orwell is not nearly as crisp and clear here as in his essays, which I'd been reading just before. The history is fascinating, but also deeply depressing. I recommend the essays for his style and 1984 for his pessimism instead.

[dryfly_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was the first book I read on the Spanish Civil War. I found it very captivating. I read it a long time ago so I can't say much more...