Publisher’s Description:’In this brilliant new work of history, Adam Hochschild follows a group of characters connected by blood ties, close friendships or personal enmities and shows how the war exposed the divisions between them.’
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Category: Books
Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
Publisher’s Description:‘In his discussion of the kinds of feelings evoked by the horrific conduct of trench warfare, the widespread psychic depression following the Armistice and his insights into the aftermath of the war.’
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Storm of Steel
Publisher’s Description:’A memoir of astonishing power, savagery and ashen lyricism, Storm of Steel depicts Ernst Jünger’s experience of combat on the front line – leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, and simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart.’
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World War I Army Training by San Francisco Bay: The Story of Camp Fremont
Publisher’s Description:’In 1917, Stanford University leased a portion of its land to allow the creation of Camp Fremont. Author Barbara Wilcox tells Camp Fremont’s story of adaptability, bravery and extraordinary accomplishment during the Great War.’
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Book Review – Poppyganda
Centenary News Review:’The symbol of the poppy today, worn on lapels around the country every November, is truly embedded in our collective memory of the First World War. We see the poppy and automatically associate it with the mud-soaked battlefields of France and Belgium. In reality, the poppy’s history is far more complex than many of us know.’
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Book Review – Breakdown
Centenary News Review:’I was particularly grateful to Downing for putting shell shock firmly within the context of the First World War. Intertwined with his shell shock narrative is an exploration of the war, the rush for recruitment, the battle plans and the battles themselves. This ensures that we fully understand how and, to a certain extent, why, this mental trauma began in the first place and how it managed to affect so many soldiers.’
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Walter Carter WW1 Soldier’s Tale
Publisher’s Description:’Like so many teenagers, Walter Carter is on Facebook and Twitter. He also writes a blog. But this is 1914, a few months before the outbreak of the greatest conflict the world has ever seen.Aged just 19, Walter is about to share the devastating changes in his life with his family, his friends, his fellow soldiers and the world. All through social media.’
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Book Review – Sisters of the Somme
Centenary News Review:From medical procedures to nursing debates to romantic meetings and blossoming friendships, this book is a fascinating and detailed account, which provides a truly comprehensive impression of a field hospital in wartime.
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Book Review – Elegy: The First Day on the Somme
Centenary News Review:’Roberts evokes the horror of 1st July 1916 by deftly balancing the facts with personal accounts and experiences. He brings the focus on the people who fought and died, who are not just numbers relegated to the history books, but men who had hopes, dreams and plans’.
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Forgotten Voices of the Somme
Centenary News Comment:Ultimately Levine has captured something quite special in this book – perhaps the very energy of the men who fought in a battle that ‘went on, and on, and on, and on’.
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