Author: Richard van Emden
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408844370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
Conventional histories of the Great War have tended to focus on the terrible attritional battles of Ypres, of Arras and of the Somme. What they do not tell us is what life was like for the ordinary soldier, what mattered to him, and how he survived, both physically and mentally. Now for the first time, one of Britain's leading military historians, Richard van Emden tells the story of the Great War exclusively through the words and images of soldiers on the ground. In Tommy's War, he gathers some of the very best first-hand material written about the War, some of it published at the time and forgotten, some of it previously unpublished, but all of it wonderfully descriptive and immediate, and often wickedly funny. Tommy humour, frequently very dark, played a vital part in men's mental survival, particularly in times of great stress. Until now its critical role in victory has been overlooked. Richard van Emden restores the balance, giving weight to the soldiers' natural inclination to laugh during their darkest moments. Illustrating these eyewitness accounts with soldiers' own photographs taken on privately owned cameras, often tiny Vest Pocket Kodaks – the smart phones of their day – van Emden has created an entirely new and fresh history of the Great War, giving us a glimpse of 'Tommy Atkins' as he has never been seen before.
Author: Richard van Emden
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408844370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
Conventional histories of the Great War have tended to focus on the terrible attritional battles of Ypres, of Arras and of the Somme. What they do not tell us is what life was like for the ordinary soldier, what mattered to him, and how he survived, both physically and mentally. Now for the first time, one of Britain's leading military historians, Richard van Emden tells the story of the Great War exclusively through the words and images of soldiers on the ground. In Tommy's War, he gathers some of the very best first-hand material written about the War, some of it published at the time and forgotten, some of it previously unpublished, but all of it wonderfully descriptive and immediate, and often wickedly funny. Tommy humour, frequently very dark, played a vital part in men's mental survival, particularly in times of great stress. Until now its critical role in victory has been overlooked. Richard van Emden restores the balance, giving weight to the soldiers' natural inclination to laugh during their darkest moments. Illustrating these eyewitness accounts with soldiers' own photographs taken on privately owned cameras, often tiny Vest Pocket Kodaks – the smart phones of their day – van Emden has created an entirely new and fresh history of the Great War, giving us a glimpse of 'Tommy Atkins' as he has never been seen before.
Author: Richard van Emden
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408844362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
Shares excerpts from the personal diaries and photographs of British soldiers to depict the daily life of a Tommy in the trenches between 1914 and 1918.
Author: James Alexander Kilpatrick
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 127
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Book Description
Author: Peter Doyle
Publisher: Crowood Press (UK)
ISBN: 9781785007637
Category : World War, 1914-1918
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
The First World War has left an almost indelible mark on history, with battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele becoming watchwords for suffering unsurpassed. The dreadful fighting on the Western Front, and elsewhere in the world, remains vivid in the public imagination. Over the years dozens of books have been published dealing with the soldier's experience, the military history and the weapons and vehicles of the war, but there has been little devoted to the objects associated with those hard years in the trenches. Tommy's War (new in paperback) redresses that balance. With hundreds of carefully captioned photographs of items that would have been part of the everyday life for the British Tommy; from recruiting posters, uniforms and entrenching equipment to games, postcards and pieces of 'trench art,' this book brings to life the experience of the Great War soldier through the objects with which he would have been surrounded.
Author: Thomas Cairns Livingstone
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007389418
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
The extraordinary diaries of Thomas Cairns Livingstone represent twenty years of gorgeously idiosyncratic daily records of a middle-class Glasgow household, over a period spanning shortly before the Great War to the early 1930s.
Author: Peter Doyle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0747814775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 120
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Book Description
On the centenary of the Great War comes this poignant look at fifty objects never far from Tommy's side – official uniform, good-luck charms, phrasebooks, a sweetheart's letter, some unexpected and others more familiar. With sumptuous original photography and thoughtful text, this is life as the ordinary First World War soldier knew it. Inside front: What Tommy Took To War tells sobering, fascinating stories that bring the ordinary Tommy's experiences back to life with poignant immediacy. With striking original photography by Chris Foster and expert text from noted historian Peter Doyle, it looks in detail at fifty objects that Tommy would have had in his kit and which would have accompanied, equipped and comforted him during his wartime ordeals: official uniform, training manual, cigarettes, good-luck charms, sweethearts' letters, foreign phrasebook and myriad others. Together, these artefacts give us a serious and informative, yet touching and even occasionally amusing, picture of the ordinary soldier's experience of the First World War.
Author: Alfred Edward Thomas Watson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sports
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Thomas Cairns Livingstone
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007285388
Category : Glasgow (Scotland)
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
The extraordinary diaries of Thomas Cairns Livingstone represent twenty years of gorgeously idiosyncratic daily records of a middle-class Glasgow household, over a period spanning shortly before the Great War to the early 1930s.
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