"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism as I understand it." With these words, Orwell describes his experiences as a mercenary in the Spanish Civil War, which are captured in his work 'Homage to Catalonia'. In this book, he describes with bitter intensity the bright hopes and cynical betrayals of a chaotic period: the revolutionary euphoria of Barcelona, the courage of the ordinary Spanish men and women with whom he fought, the terror and confusion of the front, the nearly fatal bullet he received, and the malicious betrayal by his supposed allies. An immediate account of the harsh conditions of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' includes an introduction by Julian Symons in the Penguin Modern Classics series.