A poet published in The Atlantic and The Nation, James Neugass was born into a wealthy New Orleans Jewish family on January 29, 1905. He attended Yale, Harvard, and Oxford and worked as a book reviewer, shoe salesman, social worker, and fencing coach before joining the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in 1937. Working as an ambulance driver for Dr. Edward Barsky, the legendary American surgeon, James Neugass joined the fight against fascism at a critical point in the Spanish Civil War, as Republicans and Fascists battled for control of the city of Teruel. 

James Neugass’ memoir of his time in Spain remained lost for sixty years until it turned up in a used bookshop in Vermont. Co-editors and ALBA board members Peter N. Carroll and Peter Glazer worked with the Neugass family and The New Press to publish the memoir now for the first time. War is Beautiful (2008) is poised to take its place alongside works by Erich Maria Remarque, Irène Némirovsky, Wilfred Owen, and George Orwell as a transcendent contemporaneous rendering of wartime life.

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To buy the book, visit Powell's.  All proceeds are donated to ALBA!