Hemingway's Second War: Bearing Witness to the Spanish Civil War

In 1937 and 1938, Ernest Hemingway made four trips to Spain to cover its civil war for the North American News Alliance wire service and to help create the pro-Republican documentary film The Spanish Earth. Hemingway’s Second War is the first book-length scholarly work devoted to this subject.

     Drawing on primary sources, Alex Vernon provides a thorough account of Hemingway’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War, a messy, complicated, brutal precursor to World War II that inspired Hemingway’s great novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Vernon also offers the most sustained history and consideration to date of The Spanish Earth. Directed by Joris Ivens, this film was a landmark work in the development of war documentaries, for which Hemingway served as screenwriter and narrator.

      Contributing factual, textual, and contextual information to Hemingway studies in general and his participation in the war specifically, Vernon has written a critical biography for Hemingway’s experiences during the Spanish Civil War that includes discussion of the left-wing politics of the era and the execution of José Robles Pazos. Finally, the book provides readings ofFor Whom the Bell Tollsboth in historical context and on its own terms.

      Marked by both impressive breadth and accessibility, Hemingway’s Second War will be an indispensible resource for students of literature, film, journalism, and European history and a landmark work for readers of Ernest Hemingway.

Alex Vernon is the M.E. & Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of English at Hendrix College in Arkansas. His Hemingway titles are Hemingway's Second War: Bearing Witness to the Spanish Civil War; Soldiers Once and Still: Ernest Hemingway, James Salter, and Tim O'Brien; and Teaching Hemingway and War. He has also edited essay volumes on war literature in general, on teaching the works of Tim O'Brien, and on the war memoir. He has published two soldiering memoirs―The Eyes of Orion: Five Tank Lieutenants in the Persian Gulf War (1999), which one an Armsy Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award; and most succinctly bred (2006)--as well as the cultural study On Tarzan (2008).