Looking Back on the Spanish War contains George Orwell's reminiscences of the sights, smells, and politics of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) in which he almost lost his life.

He recalls the appaling conditions in which he and his fellow soldiers lived. He contrasts the squalid surroundings with the feeling of being united to fight for a meaningful purpose. Something that unites all wars, however, is the "essential horror" of life in an army. Orwell laments the American and British intellectual classes and the "warmongering muck" that even left-wingers were spreading about the war at the time. This essay is a stirring case against propoganda, mistruth, and the political classes; combining many of the recurrant themes in Orwell's fiction and non-fiction.