Spain’s Foreign Fighters

On March 30, 2008, several hundred people gathered at the waterfront in San Francisco. They had come to witness the unveiling of a monument to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: 2,800 Americans who joined some 35,000 other volunteers from more than 50 countries to defend the Spanish Republic against fascist forces during Spain’s civil war. The conflict, which raged from 1936 until 1939, led to the deaths of around half a million people, including at least 750 Americans, and ended with the victory of General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist faction.

"Spain’s Foreign Fighters" is from the September/October 2016 issue of Foreign Affairs.

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