"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, Orwells account of life in the trenches-with a democratic army composed of men with no ranks, no titles, and often no weapons-and of his near fatal wounding, is painfully vivid and occasionally comic. As the politics became tangled, Orwell was pulled into a heartbreaking conflict between his own personal ideals and the complicated realities of political power struggles"--Goodreads.com.