Radical Politics and Emotional Liberation: Thane Summers Road to the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

This paper is a case study analyzing what mobilized one volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Thane Summers, who did not have the kind of social experiences associated with other members of the Brigade and why they volunteered. It shows how leftist political activism, was associated by Thane with an alternative, and more affirming, set of emotional standards than he had previously internalized, and that this drew him to the left and invigorated his political commitments.