"Durruti was the ultimate working-class hero: carrying the future in his heart and a gun in each pocket. Abel Paz's magnificent biography resurrects the very soul of Spanish anarchism."-Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

AK Press has commissioned an elegant, new and unabridged translation of the definitive biography of Spanish revolutionary and military strategist, Buenaventura Durruti. But Abel Paz, who fought alongside Durruti in the Spanish Civil War, has given us much more than an account of a single man's life. Durruti in the Spanish Revolutionis as much a biography of a nation and of a tumultuous historical era. Paz seamlessly weaves intimate biographical details of Durruti's life-his progression from factory worker and father to bank robber, political exile and, eventually, revolutionary leader-with extensive historical background, behind-the-scenes governmental intrigue, and blow-by-blow accounts of major battles and urban guerrilla warfare. An amazing and exhaustive study of an incredible man and his life-long fight against fascism in both its capitalist and Stalinist forms.

Includes Jose Luis Gutierres Molina's introduction about Abel Paz's life and the historiography of the Spanish Civil War.

Abel Pazwas born in 1921. At 15, he joined the Durruti Column and fought in the Spanish Revolution. After the revolution's defeat, he was active as a guerilla fighter against the Franco regime and spent eleven years in prison. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.

Chuck Morsefounded the Institute for Anarchist Studies, co-edited Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, and founded and edited The New Formulation: An Anti-Authoritarian Review of Books. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Perhaps the most famous and admired of the Spanish anarchists, Buenventura Durruti (1896-1936) played a central role in the events of the Spanish Revolution, the anarchist response to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and the Spanish Civil War, especially through his activities with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) and the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederarión Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). This is a sympathetic political biography of Durruti--written by an anarchist activist himself jailed for guerilla activity against Franco--that also can serve as a somewhat dense introduction to the radical politics of Spain during the Spanish Civil War and in the years preceding. The narrative stretches from Durruti's involvement in the strikes of 1917 through his leading of anarchist militias until his death during the Battle of Madrid, which resulted in the fall of the city to the forces of Franco. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Abel Paz was born in 1921. At the age of fifteen, he joined the Durruti Column and fought in the Spanish Revolution. After the revolution's defeat, he was active as a guerilla fighter against the Franco regime and spent eleven years in prison.