Bibliography

 

The list below is a very small selection from the vast and ever growing materials on the war. The emphasis is on first person accounts and general history of Canadian involvement.

---

General Histories of Canadian Participation in the Civil War

There are three important histories of the Civil War written from a Canadian perspective:

Victor Hoar was an academic and produced the most detailed of the three histories, The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion: the Canadian Contingent in the Spanish Civil War (written with the research assistance of Mac Reynolds). In style it  is a conventional military and social history, particularly strong on providing clear chronology and sorting out the often confusing events. He also gives more information on what was happening in Canada than Beeching. (Copp Clark Publishing, Toronto, 1969, reissued by Carleton University Press, 1989)

W.C Beeching was volunteer himself and a postwar leader of the Saskatchewan Communist Party. His book, Canadian Volunteers: Spain, 1936-1939, quotes first person accounts to a much greater extent and through them gives a greater sense of the character of  the participants themselves. The battle descriptions are well organized and it has a number of maps. It also includes a  particularly useful description of the Spanish background in a preface by James Napier McCrorie. Beeching tends to focus exclusively on the experience of the volunteers in Spain with little reference to events in Canada..

Mark Zuehlke's The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 is the most unusual of the three. Zuehlke is a professional writer who describes his approach as literary non-fiction, "shaping the narrative around the limited point of view of the participants."  His book is compelling reading from the beginning of the narrative with various volunteers thinking through their reasons for travelling to Spain to his harrowing account of the final battles. Its strength, putting us so strongly in the minds and experiences of the participants, does however at times leave the reader without the clear narrative sequence provided by Hoar's book. (Whitecap Books Ltd., Vancouver/Toronto  1996)

Mark Zuehlke's book might be the best choice for the reader looking for a single account but all three books are well crafted and all three contribute material of interest.

---

First Person Accounts

Kardash, William (Lt.): I Fought for Canada in Spain
Kardash was a tank officer. He was seriously wounded at the Ebro, losing a leg. He later became a Winnepeg alderman.
New Era Publishers, Toronto [1938]