Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Was listening recently to Orwell's biography, and while they discussed Orwell's service at the time of the Spanish Civil War, I realized that most books I've read about the subject were from people either directly or indirectly supporting the Communist side (Orwell, of course, served on the red side and was wounded pretty gravely there). While I am not saying what they wrote were lies, their sympathies inevitably colored how they approach the matter. So I wonder - can anybody recommend some good works about the period which aren't written by leftists? I am not looking for right-side propaganda, but for an honest effort, just not from the left side, because I already seen those and now want to see something different if possible. Can be fictional or documentary, but I don't want a dry historic "this happened, then that happened, then that happened" but something more narratory, engaging and explanatory even if it's a documentary.
Maybe Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War by Peter Kemp? I haven't read it, but it seems to be more of a personal narrative about Kemp, foreigner who joins the Nationalist Army and becomes an officer, than it is a tome of history. It's been a big thing on dissident right twitter for a while, to the point that the edition I linked is a reprint by "Mystery Grove Publishing", a "far right publishing house". "Everyone on right-wing twitter loves it" is, if anything, negative evidence about the quality, but it seems to have good reviews from other normal people who wanted to see the other perspective.
Peter Kemp is like the mirror George Orwell. Both left interesting accounts which are valuable as primary sources, and they both get recommended incessantly by extremely online right-wingers and leftists respectively when books on the Spanish Civil War are requested. But if you're trying to actually understand the socio-political background/context of the SCW reading Orwell or Kemp will probably leave you less informed than you started, because both were Englishmen who knew next to nothing about the country or the war they had just volunteered to fight in and had a tendency to just uncritically believe propaganda from one or the other side.
Orwell does have a long and tedious chapter on the political side, mostly focused on the POUM faction that he fought for. It reads a bit like the "People's Front of Judea vs the Judean People's Front" but in Life of Brian.
Kemp barely mentions politics. His motivation was reading about the communists raping and murdering nuns and being so incensed that he decided to volunteer. He even met Franco personally but skims over it in a couple of paragraphs.
In terms of personality they were very different. Kemp was optimistic, confident and adventurous. I like him a lot more than Orwell even though Orwell was a better writer
I've been pondering an effort post about those two for a long time. As an outsider it feels like the English national character today is descended entirely from the Orwells and the Kemp archetype died with the Empire.
It’s been a while since I read either one. I just remember a part where Kemp repeats the Franco line about Guernica having been burnt by the republicans on retreat.
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