Much has been written about the Spanish Civil War’s effects on Spain and its citizens, but little attention has been paid to the women involved in the conflict. In this beautifully written biographical work, Paul Preston tells the forgotten war stories of four exceptional women whose lives were starkly altered by the war.

The portraits in this provocative, yet objective volume mirror the war itself, with the left pitted against the right. On the left side are Margarita Neken, the revolutionary feminist, writer, and politician; and Nan Green, the communist nurse who left her children behind in England to fight against fascism alongside her husband in the International Brigades. On the right side are Mercedes Sanz Bachiller, the most powerful woman in the Francoist zone; and Priscilla Scott-Ellis, the wealthy English socialite who, lured to Spain by love, stayed on to help the fascist war effort as a nurse on the front lines.