War Stuff

Focuses on the intense struggle over human and material resources between armies and civilians in the Civil War South.

The Stuff of Soldiers uses everyday objects to tell the story of the Great Patriotic War as never before. Brandon Schechter attends to a diverse array of things—from spoons to tanks—to show how a wide array of citizens became soldiers, and how the provisioning of material goods separated soldiers from civilians. Through a fascinating examination of leaflets, proclamations, newspapers, manuals, letters to and from the front, diaries, and interviews, The Stuff of Soldiers reveals how the use of everyday items made it possible to wage war. The dazzling range of documents showcases ethnic diversity, women's particular problems at the front, and vivid descriptions of violence and looting. Each chapter features a series of related objects: weapons, uniforms, rations, and even the knick-knacks in a soldier's rucksack. These objects narrate the experience of people at war, illuminating the changes taking place in Soviet society over the course of the most destructive conflict in recorded history. Schechter argues that spoons, shovels, belts, and watches held as much meaning to the waging of war as guns and tanks. In The Stuff of Soldiers, he describes the transformative potential of material things to create a modern culture, citizen, and soldier during World War II.

“The most terrible disaster that one group of human beings can inflict on another is war. Wars cause misery on an indescribable scale. Yet we go on doing it to one another, generation after generation. Why? Warfare is a recurrent and universal characteristic of human existence. The mythologies of practically all peoples abound in wars and the superhuman deeds of warriors, and pre-literate communities apparently delighted in the recital of stories about battles. Since our species became literate a mere 5,000 years ago, written history has mostly been the history of wars. Thousands who knew war evidently sickened of it and dreamt of lasting peace, expressing their vision in literature and art, in philosophy and religion. They imagined Utopias freed of martial ambition and bloodshed which harked back to the Golden Age of classical antiquity, to the Christian vision of a paradise lost, and to the Arcadia of Greek and Latin poetry, so richly celebrated in the canvases of Claude and Poussin. All these things bear eloquent testimony to the human longing for peace, but they have not triumphed over our dreadfully powerful propensity to war.” —from the Introduction by Anthony Stevens In this multi-disciplinary collection of essays on the manifestations of war in poetry, fiction, drama, music and documentaries, scholars and practitioners from an international context describe the transformation of the war experience into chronicles of hope and despair, from Herodotus up to the present day.

Winner of Best Books with Facts in the 2013 Blue Peter awards, voted for by children. In Sir Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders World War II, Sir Tony Robinson takes you on a headlong gallop through time, pointing out all the most important, funny, strange, amazing, entertaining, smelly and disgusting bits about World War II! It's history, but not as we know it! Find out everything you need to know in this brilliant, action-packed, fact-filled book, including: - Just how useful mashed potato is - How the Battle of Britain was won - What it takes to be a spy - How D-Day was kept a surprise For more World War history facts in this fun series, discover World War I.

A dramatic and tragic episode in British military history that will soon not be part of living memory. More than 100,000 British troops fought in Korea between 1950 and 1953, of which just over 1,000 died, with a further 1,000 captured and held in atrocious conditions by the Chinese and North Koreans. At least half of those captured died in prison camps. More than 70 per cent of those who fought were teenagers doing National Service – poorly trained and ill-equipped. The Korean War: Memories of Forgotten British Heroes tells the story of these men in their own words. Most of the veterans are now advanced in age and there is a pressing need for them to tell their tale. So soon after the Second World War, this was a conflict Britain did not need, but she remained steadfast by the side of the Americans, fighting more than 6,000 miles away in a country barely anyone could point to on a map. Yet while we remember those conflicts in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Korean War remains largely forgotten.