Fearless Women in the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Civil War (review)

In many respects this is an ambitious book: in Fearless Women Linhard brings together different genres and crosses continents as she looks at women's participation in the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Civil War, and the representation of their contribution to these events in literature and (briefly) cinema. Linhard makes a convincing case for looking at the Mexican Revolution and Spanish Civil War together, and she brings the two events together almost seamlessly in her discussion of literary, cultural and gender theory in the first section of her book. She also includes some wonderful illustrations, although one could question the publisher's decision to add the leading subtitles to figs. 3 and 4 (pp. 48–49). Conversely, the picture of the plaque to the thirteen Rosas in the Madrid cemetery, dated 1988, begs further details: who precisely was responsible for this commemoration to these women and why did it happen in 1988 (fig. 10, p. 157)?

Quoting Jo Labanyi, Linhard states that one of the aims of her book is to give the female participants of the Mexican Revolution and Spanish Civil War "a hospitable memory . . . out of concern for justice," and that her goal is "to set free their ghosts, to gesture at something that, like a specter or a phantom limb, cannot be seen, much less apprehended" (p. 7). In her quest to do so, Linhard concentrates on the textual representation of these women and, in particular, the manner of their untimely deaths. This is, as she later explains, "because revolutionary women usually made their entrance to historiographies or archives only in the form of icons, metaphors or myths, discussing their roles in these struggles necessarily leads to a space between history and literature, between fact and fiction, or between myths and the complex histories that lurk underneath" (p. 31). Yet some of the discussions of real events (such as the rationale behind the suicide of Lina Ordena and the literary criticism of the testimonies relating to the events of the night before the executions of eleven of the thirteen "Rosas") make uncomfortable reading. It is easier to consider the examples of Mexico's "Adelitas" and "Valentinas" who perhaps always were, and who have certainly become, types rather than individuals.

Fearless Women is a scholarly and well-referenced work that is likely to appeal to a variety of students and academics; although its cross-gender nature may inevitably mean that readers will find some chapters more accessible than others. Students of Mexican and Spanish women's literature will find Linhard's discussions of her chosen texts very useful and, although it is unlikely that all of her readers will be familiar with all of the works discussed, she provides sufficient detail and enticing quotes that invite one to study the texts more closely—or at least they make one Mexicanist feel that she ought to learn more about the Spanish Civil War.