Category: Books

Publisher’s Description: ‘This, the first anthology of women war poets for over sixty years, will come as a surprise to many. It shows, for example, that women were writing protest poetry before Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, and that the view of ‘the women at home’, ignorant and idealistic, was quite false.’

Publisher’s Description:’In An Ice-Cream War, William Boyd brilliantly evokes the private dramas of a generation upswept by the winds of war. By turns comic and quietly wise, An Ice-Cream War deftly renders lives capsized by violence, chance, and the irrepressible human capacity for love.’

Publisher’s Description:To commemorate the centenary of the iconic Christmas Truce of 1914, Andrew Hamilton and Alan Reed have extended their work on the 1/ Royal Warwicks’ armistice at St. Yves in Belgium to include another 8 battalions in an in-depth investigation of Christmas in the wider Plugstreet Wood.

Publisher’s Description: ‘Silent Night brings to life one of the most unlikely and touching events in the annals of war. In the early months of WWI, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides left their trenches, laid down their arms, and joined in a spontaneous celebration with their new friends, the enemy. For a brief, blissful time, remembered since in song and story, a world war stopped.’

Publisher’s Description:’Christmas, 1914. The first winter of the First World War. In a conflict infamous for its horror and brutality, enemy shook hands with enemy. Soldiers shared rations, exchanged souvenirs, and even played football on a frost-covered No Man’s Land.’

Centenary News Review: ‘By the time of the Armistice, the British Army had identified and treated approximately 80,000 young men for shell shock.’ That figure is not unknown to us and shell shock is a common image of World War One – the mute, shivering soldier unable to vocalise the horrors he has seen – but Suzie Grogan in Shell Shocked Britain examines shell shock on a much deeper, long term level and argues that war trauma extended past the front lines to the home front and affected not only soldiers, but men, women and children at home.

Publisher’s Description:’Based on exclusive access to Turkish archives, Defending Gallipoli reveals how the Turks reacted and defended Gallipoli. Author and Turkish-language expert Harvey Broadbent spent five years translating everything, from official records to soldiers’ personal diaries and letters, to unearth the Turkish story.’

Publisher’s Description:’The Eastern Front in World War I has been neglected for too long. Breakthrough: The Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign, 1915 is the first English-language study of the first of the great breakthrough battles of the war—one of the Great War’s critical campaigns.