Review
'A very valuable book!Holmes's expertise in the minutiae of warfare makes him the ideal guide!One of the most readable of military historians!his empathy with his subject is obvious but he does not allow it to cloud his historical judgement. As a consequence specialists as well as general readers will gain much from this book.' BBC History Magazine (Pick of the Month) Praise for 'Tommy': 'What sets Richard Holmes apart is the sheer quality of his writing and his empathy with his subjects! "Tommy" will stand as a classic of First World War history.' Independent 'Holmes is one of our foremost military scholars and a skilled writer who knows his audience well. This is excellent popular history: scholarly, highly readable and utterly absorbing.' Daily Telegraph '[There is] much to admire in the way Holmes interweaves his pacy account of events with these most harrowing of letters home.' Guardian '[A] superb and important book.' Sunday Telegraph 'An indispensible companion to the letters and journals. The photos are extraordinary!Holmes's commentary is superlative. He notices everything!it provides a calm, outstandingly knowledgeable guide to the carnage.' Daily Mail 'His portrayal is winning precisely because it is written with an affection that is born of profound familiarity.' Sunday Times 'His book should be indispensable for anyone who wants to understand what the life of a soldier on the Western Front was really like.' Daily Mail '[Holmes] has produced yet another fascinating, balanced and original book of a highly emotive subject.' Saul David, Sunday Telegraph 'Endlessly interesting, and Holmes has a sharp, knowing eye for anecdote and detail that allows him to weave a vivid tapestry.' Mail on Sunday Praise for 'Marlborough': 'The appeal of Holmes's books is not merely their authority but their style. His lightness of touch makes these 500 pages a joy to read as well as an education.' The Times 'Monumental!Every page of this is worth reading.' Time Out
Product Description
A handsomely illustrated photographic account, by the bestselling author of 'Tommy' (2003), of the human experience of war as directly witnessed by British soldiers in the First World War. Richard Holmes, one of Britain's best-known military historians (and President of the British Commission of Military History), has selected over 200 photographs taken for the most part by officers and men rather than by official photographers -- mostly unfamiliar ones located in archive collections, regimental museums and private sources. There will also be specially commissioned photographs by Mike Sheil, one of the best battlefield photographers working today. The book will deal with the whole of the British Army's experience of the First World War -- Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and so on -- and not just on the Western Front. The photographs will be grouped thematically as extended picture essays; topics include the pre-war army and mobilisation of 1914; the contribution made by nurses; medical treatment and the wounded; infantrymen and their weapons; the campaign in Mesopotamia and more. Like 'Tommy', the book is about people rather than things, about the human experience of war rather than its strategy or tactics, and at least as much about the everyday or commonplace -- a latrine here or a plate of bully beef there -- as about the lofty or portentous. It shows us the dirt beneath the fingernails of history.
