Between 1936 and 1939 several thousand men and women from Britain chose to leave the safety of their homes and involve themselves in another country’s civil war. The country was Spain, where a military uprising had been launched against the country’s Republican government. Most of the British who went to Spain were volunteers for the legendary International Brigades, though others served in other roles, such as medics, journalists or aid workers. A few even fought for Franco.

Drawing substantially on new material, these ten biographies tell the stories of a handful of those extraordinary men and women, explaining why they went to Spain, what happened to them there and the lasting, often dramatic impact the war had on their lives. While they survived the war, all were forever changed by their experiences. All of them were, in their different ways, forged in Spain.

Richard Baxell is a historian who has written extensively on the British volunteers and the Spanish Civil War. His Unlikely Warriors was short-listed for the 2013 political history book of the year.