Homage to Catalonia
George Orwell · 1938
Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republic, was shot through the throat by a sniper, and witnessed the Communist Party's betrayal of the revolution from the inside. His furious, honest account of the Spanish Civil War (the idealism, the betrayal, the bureaucracy of oppression) is the first draft of everything he wrote afterwards.
The case against
Two long chapters of POUM-versus-Communist factional accounting stop the memoir dead, and Orwell knew it; later editions exile them to appendices. He saw one quiet front and a week of Barcelona street fighting, then generalized a war from it. As history it is partial and says so. Saying so does not make it less partial.
Non-Fiction · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
