The Iron Column was a Spanish anarchist militia column formed during the Spanish Civil War to fight the military forces of Francisco Franco that had rebelled against the Second Spanish Republic. They defied the dictatorship springing up in the wake of the rebellion, riding out the fall of the Spanish revolution that raged alongside the civil war. Abel Paz uses the testimony of its members to create this important history, alongside extracts from its newspaper, Linea de Fuego, and unseen, private documents which tell the Iron Column's remarkable story.