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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade: the Historiography of the American soldiers in the Spanish American War
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After the first person accounts of the Lincoln Brigade were published, a number of historians began writing books about the Lincoln Brigade and their role in Spanish Civil War. Oddly enough, perhaps the most comprehensive account of the Lincoln Brigade during this second generation of books was drafted by Arthur Landis, an American veteran of the Spanish Civil War, entitled The Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Unfortunately, these histories suffer from a number of problems. While Landis’ work is the most comprehensive, it is also potentially the most biased. The other books relied on incomplete information for their conclusions. Additionally, a number of the American veterans during 1950s and 1960s were also discouraged from talking openly about the experiences because they were concerned about being labeled communists.
===The Second Generation of Books===[[File:Crusade_of_the_Left.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|<i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006C04TY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0006C04TY&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=d3e58b9f0677289401ab71e67822450c Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War]</i> by Richard A. Rosentone]] Richard A. Rosenstone is good example of the second generation of historians who researched the Lincoln Brigade. In his 1967 article “The Men of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade” and his book <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006C04TY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0006C04TY&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=d3e58b9f0677289401ab71e67822450c Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War]</i>, which was published in 1969, Rosenstone attempted to developed a portrait of the men who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Unlike Landis and Colodny, he did not participate in the Spanish Civil War. In “The Men of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade” he tried to understand who was an “average member” of the Lincoln Brigade. Unfortunately, a number of his conclusions are speculative. Because he is attempting to provide an outline for an average member of the brigade his descriptions are ultimately inaccurate.
In Rosenstone’s discussion of the veteran’s political party affiliations, he stated that anywhere from 25 to 80 percent of the volunteers were Communist party members. He states that “no one really knows because no records of political affiliations were kept.” In fact, the Soviets in Moscow maintained complete records regarding the political affiliations of the volunteers. Those records indicated that almost 80 percent of the American volunteers were members of the Communist party or the Young Communist Party.
