The last Great War : British society and the First World War
Gregory, Adrian2008
Books, Manuscripts
Review: "What was it that the British people believed they were fighting for in 1914-1918? This compelling history of the British home front during the First World War offers an entirely new account of how British society understood and endured the war. Drawing on official archives, memoirs, diaries and letters, Adrian Gregory sheds new light on the public reaction to the war, examining the role of propaganda and rumour in fostering patriotism and hatred of the enemy. He shows the importance of the ethic of volunteerism and the rhetoric of sacrifice in debates over where the burdens of war should fall as well as the influence of religious ideas on wartime culture. As the war drew to a climax and tensions about the distribution of sacrifices threatened to tear society apart, Gregory shows how victory and the processes of commemoration helped create a fiction of a society united in grief."--BOOK JACKET.
Main title:
The last Great War : British society and the First World War / Adrian Gregory.
Author:
Imprint:
Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Collation:
viii, 354 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Notes:
Formerly CIP.Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Introduction. The war that did not end all wars -- 1. Going to war -- 2. Defining the enemy: Atrocities and propaganda 1914-1915 -- 3. From spectatorship to participation; From volunteering to compulsion 1914-1916 -- 4. Economies of sacrifice -- 5. Redemption through war: Religion and the languages of sacrifice -- 6. The conditional sacrifices of labour 1915-1918 -- 7. Struggling to victory 1917-1918 -- 8. The last war?
ISBN:
978052145037905214503739780521728836
Dewey class:
940.341
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
391
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