JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2 183 1 Recent research into the phenomenon include N. Arielli / D. Rodogno, «Transnational Encounters: Hosting and Remembering Twentieth-Century Foreign War Volunteers», in: Journal of Modern European History 14 (2016) 3, 315–320; A. de Gutt- ry / F. Capone / C. Paulussen, «Introduction», in: idem (eds.), Foreign Fighters under International Law and Beyond, The Hague, 2016, 1–5. 2 R. Gildea / A. Tompkins, «The Transnational in the Local: The Larzac Plateau as a Site of Transnation- al Activism since 1970», in: Journal of Contempo- rary History 50 (2015) 3, 581–605; S. Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism, Cambridge 2005; D. della Porta / H. Kriesi, «Social Movements in a Globalizing World: An Introduction», in: idem / D. Rucht (eds.), Social Movements in a Globalizing World, Houndsmills 1999, 3–22; D. Malet, Foreign Fighters. Transnational Identity in Civil Conficts, Oxford 2013. 3 Recent examples include R. Skoutelsky, L’espoir guidait leur pas. Les voluntaires français dans les Bri- gades internationales 1936–1939, Paris 1998; M. Zuehlke, The Gallant Cause. Canadians in the Spanish Civil War 1936–1939, Mississauga 2007 (1996); R. Baxell, Unlikely Warriors, London 2012; N. Ulmi / P. Huber, Les Combattants suisses en Es- pagne républicaine (1936–1939), Lausanne 2001. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), over 32.000 foreign fghters fought to defend the Spanish Republic from a military uprising that was led by Francisco Franco and strongly supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. These foreign fghters have fascinated historians ever since, but historical and societal interests have surged since the start of the wars in Syria and Iraq, which have once again drawn signifcant numbers of military volunteers from abroad. 1 Increasingly, historians as well as social and political scientists point to these foreign fghters as a specifc, violent brand of transnational activists, pursuing con- tentious politics outside the usual political arenas and legal norms in defence of a shared identity existing beyond the territorial, juridical, economic, political, and so- ciocultural boundaries of the nation-state. 2 Likewise, historians of the «International Brigades» in the Spanish Civil War invariably point to a shared set of experiences by its members, irrespective of their country of origin: the poverty and social injustices of the 1930s and a profound fear of the rise of Fascism abroad and at home that was combined to create a truly transnational connection between peoples of diferent origins, which was activated by the Spanish Civil War and which melded them to- gether in an ideologically motivated transnational citizen’s army. 3 Samuël Kruizinga Struggling to Fit in. The Dutch in a Transnational Army, 1936–1939