| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

Paul Preston. Doves of War: Four Women of Spain. Reprint. Boston: Northeastern University Press. 2003. Pp. x, 469. $30.00.
This highly readable work by the renowned historian and biographer Paul Preston brings to light the lives of four remarkable, relatively unknown women who were involved in the Spanish Civil War. Each woman's story reflects a unique combination of political, ideological, national, and wartime employment variables: British, working-class, communist Nan Green and British socialite Priscilla Scott-Ellis were both nurses, although Green was on the Republican and Scott-Ellis on the Nationalist side. Mercedes Sans-Bachiller and Margarita Nelkin were both Spanish-born, middle-class political activists, although Sans-Bachiller was a conservative Castilian, Catholic, and Francoist, and Nelkin was a Jewish, feminist revolutionary of German and French ancestry. Except for a brief prologue and epilogue, Preston tells each woman's story separately. Hence this book is actually four distinct biographies under one cover, each of which can be read independently of the others. Because he relies extensively on diaries and letters that highlight personal relationships over political detail, Preston calls this a work of "emotional history" (p. 8).	1
The most intriguing story in the book is undoubtedly that of Scott-Ellis, who left a luxurious life in England to become a nurse on the Spanish front. Scott-Ellis is a fascinating figure not only because of the stark contrast between her socialite lifestyle and the harsh conditions of war, and because she went to Spain for "romantic" rather than political reasons, but because she kept a marvelous diary of her experiences. This first section of the book is an exceptionally "good read" even for those with little knowledge of/interest in Spanish politics or history.	. . .

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