War Books Review

Welcome to War Books Review

I’ve set up this book-review blog for military enthusiasts, with an emphasis on cutting-edge war memoirs and key works of modern military history. I hope to provide a round-up of the latest publications, while at the same time providing a retrospective look at some of the many volumes from military history's vast 'back catalogue'.

The books reviewed here can usually be bought on amazon.co.uk by clicking on the links provided. Older and out-of-print books are best tracked down on second-hand book sites such as abebooks.co.uk and alibris.co.uk.

I'd be delighted to receive your own views and comments on the books reviewed here. You can discover more about me and my own books on adrian-gilbert.co.uk.

Gallipoli

PETER HART
Turkey’s entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers seemed to provide an ideal opportunity for the Allies to exploit their naval superiority in the Mediterranean: an assault on the Turkish Dardanelles, gateway to the Bosporus and the capital city of Constantinople. More to the point, it was also seen as an alternative to the costly trench deadlock that had gripped the Western Front since the end of 1914. But this was a dangerously flawed strategic vision that evaded the central requirement of defeating the German Army on the Western Front to secure overall victory. 

If the Allied strategic proposal was unsound, then its inept execution only made matters worse. All element of surprise was lost when British and French naval forces attempted to force the Dardanelles; they were repulsed with heavy losses. As the Allies subsequently prepared for an amphibious landing, the Turks were given time to bring up reinforcements and improve their defences. 

When British, Anzac and French troops hit the beaches on 25 April 1915 they faced determined Turkish opposition, and lacking any special equipment for amphibious operations were only able to secure tenuous footholds at Cape Hellas and Anzac Cove. In August, further landings were made at Suvla Bay, but command failures and general inexperience prevented any break out from the beach-head. Ironically, a Western-Front stalemate was replicated on Gallipoli, and continuing losses and the failure to make any headway led to the Allied evacuation of the peninsula in December and January, bringing the whole episode to an inglorious close.

Peter Hart – an expert on Gallipoli – has written a well-balanced and highly readable account of the campaign. He includes British, Australian and New Zealand sources but also draws upon new French and Turkish accounts to provide a wider and more detailed picture of the fighting. He makes it clear that the whole operation was ‘lunacy’ from the start, and that an opposed amphibious landing – the most difficult of military operations – was quite beyond the capabilities of the British Army of 1915. 

Making good use of personal testimonies, Hart describes the bravery of the troops on both sides as they endured terrible climatic conditions while ravaged by disease. In the many circles of hell encountered by frontline soldiers in World War I, Gallipoli must be considered among the most dreadful. For the Allies it was an abject defeat, but for the Turks it was a hard-fought victory that helped seal the reputation of a relatively junior officer, who as Kemal Attaturk would emerge as the founder of modern Turkey. 

Profile Books, 544 pages, £25 (h/b)    

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Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Real Story of Britain’s War in Afghanistan

TOBY HARNDEN
The publication of this exceptional book was unfortunately attended by farce, when, at the last minute, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) demanded that it be withdrawn. Toby Harnden – like other correspondents writing on sensitive military subjects – had been closely involved in protracted negotiations with the MoD over what was acceptable to publish. In the review process the author obviously wrote close to the line, noting in his introduction that ‘493 separate questions, suggestions or requests for changes’ were made. 

But with the first edition on its way to the bookshops, the MoD suddenly claimed that the book contained classified information that ‘could damage national security and put at risk the lives of members of the Armed Forces’. Harnden, a former Royal Navy officer and currently US Online Editor for The Daily Telegraph, was hardly out to make trouble for the Army; he and his publisher refused to budge. Rather than go to court, the MoD forked out £150,000 to have the 24,000 copies of the first edition pulped. Readers of this present, slightly modified edition will have the surreal opportunity of seeing lines in the book redacted (blacked out) – surely a first for a mainstream work of military history.

Back to the book itself, which comprises the story of the Welsh Guards and their six-month tour of Helmand during the summer fighting season of 2009 (Operation Herrick 10). As a reporter in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s Harnden came across British intelligence officer Rupert Thorneloe, and the two men clicked. In 2009 Thorneloe was transferred from a Whitehall desk job to command the Welsh Guards in the field. On 1 July, leading his men in action, Thorneloe was killed by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), prompting Harden to investigate his friend’s death within the context of the Welsh Guards’ Afghan deployment.

One of the biggest problems facing any journalist is getting too involved with his or her subject. There can be no doubt of Harnden’s admiration for Thorneloe and the soldiers of the Welsh Guards, and yet the author has written an unusually frank account of the regiment at war. We are provided with a detailed, unflinching portrait of the nature of modern warfare, where battlefield heroism exists alongside refusals to go into action, where professional leadership of the highest order is affected by personal failings and professional rivalries. The author also reveals the Army’s chronic tendency to take on tasks that leave it dangerously overstretched.

In a book of this extended length, there is an opportunity to consider events in greater detail than has been the case in other regimental ‘biographies’, and Harnden has done a good job of getting to the heart of the Welsh Guards: what the officers and men are like as individuals, what makes the regiment tick. 

There is much here of interest on tactical matters. The prowess of British sniping has been confirmed, with the example of two attached snipers from 4 Rifles killing 75 Taliban fighters over a period of just 40 days. Harnden makes considered comparisons between the tactical approaches of the British Army and the US Marine Corps, recently deployed in Helmand, noting how far the Americans have come in recent years. But one of the central themes running through the book is the failure of the Coalition forces to come to grips with neutralizing IEDs (which caused so many casualties to the Welsh Guards). The current mine-clearing devices are clearly inadequate, especially against low-metal content IEDs, and the ‘treacle effect’ of painstakingly clearing a path through an infested zone prevents the rapid tactical movement essential in counter-insurgency warfare.

This is a thought-provoking book, well-written and conscientiously researched; the author is to be congratulated for having sent one of best despatches from Britain’s war in Afghanistan.

Quercus, 638 pages, £18.99 (h/b)

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Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War

DAVID EDGERTON
The standard interpretation of Britain’s role in World War II is of the battling underdog, a nation fighting alone against an opponent possessing far greater material resources. Complementing this heroic conception has been a second, more gloomy assessment of a country fighting above its weight and virtually bankrupting itself in the process. 

David Edgerton, a founding director of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Imperial College, London, vigorously refutes such notions. The central thrust of this comprehensively researched and energetically argued work is that a wealthy Britain entered the war in a strong position and, confident of victory from the outset, successfully prosecuted the war in its own best interests. He maintains that Britain, alongside the United States, gained a cheap victory in terms of lives lost and material expended.   

Edgerton emphasises Britain’s access to resources around the world – in marked contrast to the Axis powers – and how the nation’s complex international financial and maritime background gave it unique advantages in waging a global war. He also stresses the way in which Britain successfully redeployed its civilian talents – especially scientific and technological – towards military goals. Lastly, and most controversially, he makes a case for the parity – and, at times, superiority – of British weapons against those of its chief opponent, Germany.

At sea and in the air, Britain could field weapons that were, in the main, similar in kind to those produced by Germany, and in the development and provision of heavy bombers it had a marked advantage. On land, however, the relative merits of British and German weapons were more variable. Britain, for example, could deploy superior field artillery (generally very well handled) but was inferior in terms of the development and use of mortars. The author makes a good claim for the qualities of the British Bren light machine gun but glosses over the German introduction of the general-purpose machine gun (MG34/MG42), a far more important weapon.

The author also devotes considerable space to comparing British and German armour, the general consensus being that the former was substantially less effective than the latter. Edgerton, with much special pleading, argues for a qualitative superiority ‘in some respects’ for British tanks (p. 219) but this simply won’t wash: from 1940 to the end of the war German armoured vehicles maintained overall superiority in the prime tactical requirement of balancing mobility, firepower and protection. 

But superiority of weapons or otherwise is only one part of the equation for military success. Britain’s land forces invariably came second to those of Germany in operational matters. German soldiers were better trained and led than their British opponents, and it was only with substantial superiority in men and materials (ground and air) that Britain could defeat Germans forces on the battlefield – albeit a point acknowledged by the author on the last page of his book.    

Edgerton has nonetheless produced an important and, at times, brilliant work of scholarship. By undermining so many of the arguments of the ‘doom-and-gloom’ school he has forced us to revaluate our understanding of Britain in World War II. 

Allen Lane, 464 pages, £25 (h/b)

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Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89

 RODRIC BRAITHWAITE
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 led to a hail of denunciation from both Western states and the Muslim world that came as a shock to Leonid Brezhnev and the other Soviet leaders locked away in the Kremlin. In the West, the invasion was condemned as an example of brutal Soviet imperialism, but the Kremlin genuinely considered it more a short-term police action designed to restore order among the battling Afghan communist factions that had seized Kabul in the coup of 1978.

The Soviets also hoped to push Afghanistan on a more secular, progressive course, with improved educational facilities and greater freedom for women. Needless to say, these were ideas that found little support outside the metropolitan elites in Kabul, and the Soviets made matters worse with their heavy handed imposition of authority. The original Soviet time-frame for the operation was around six months, but the Red Army found itself embroiled in a bloody and fruitless war that would last for more than nine years.

The United States, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries were quick to despatch men, money and munitions to support the indigenous mujahedin guerrillas fighting the Russians. As the Red Army failed to impose its military will over the country – and with casualties mounting – American commentators understandably began to call the war ‘Russia’s Vietnam’.

As a former British ambassador to Moscow during the period in question, Rodric Braithwaite is well qualified to write this critical yet sympathetic history of the conflict from a Russian perspective. Maintaining a skilful balance, he outlines the political background before describing the course of the war from the viewpoints of the military planners and those who did the actual fighting, whether elite special forces or reluctant conscripts.

The war’s unpopularity with the Russian people began to find increasing expression – especially among the women whose sons and husbands were being sent to Afghanistan – and with the accession to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, preparations for disengagement were put in place. Braithwaite reminds us of another parallel with Vietnam: the returning Red Army veterans – Afgantsy – were cold-shouldered by a civilian population only too keen to put this painful defeat behind them.

The final withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan took place in February 1989 and three years later the regime fell to the mujahedin warlords, whose squabbling and corruption became a precursor to the arrival of the Taliban in 1996. Braithwaite discounts the extravagant claims made by some in the United States that the Red Army’s failure in Afghanistan was the precursor to the collapse of the Soviet Union. More to the point, however, the financial and military assistance given to the mujahedin would backfire against the West with the success of the Taliban and their support for Al Qaeda.

Profile Books, 432 pages, £25 (h/b) 

 

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Black Watch: Liberating Europe and Catching Himmler – My Extraordinary WW2 with the Highland Division

TOM RENOUF
A former soldier in the Black Watch, Tom Renouf has an abiding affection and respect for his former comrades in the 51^st Highland Division, and as the secretary of the division’s veterans association he has been prominent in the raising of monuments paying tribute to those highlanders killed in battle. While the publisher is keen to promote the autobiographical elements of the book, it is, in fact, something of a hybrid: a straightforward divisional history interspersed with the author’s recollections of service life.

Inducted into the Army in May 1943, the 18-year-old Renouf was assigned to the Tyneside Scottish, and it was with this unit that the young soldier landed on the Normandy beaches on 10 June 1944. Within days he was subjected to a ferocious baptism of fire that culminated in the successful defence of Rauray on 1 July. After the break-up of his battalion – a result of heavy casualties – he was delighted with his transfer to the famed Black Watch, in which he served for the rest of the war. After recovering from wounds sustained in the final part of the Normandy campaign he rejoined his battalion for the crossing of the Rhine and the advance into Germany. The featured capture of Himmler is a publisher’s red herring, however; although Renouf was in the guard house when several Germans were brought in for questioning, it was only later (and elsewhere) that one of them was discovered to be the former SS chief.

From these pages, Renouf emerges as a likeable man, and he has much of interest to say about his fellow soldiers and the nature of combat. It is something of a shame then that there is not more of this here, and rather less on the history of the division.

Little, Brown, 320 pages, £20 (h/b)

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The Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race

DAVID E. HOFFMAN
When the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949 the Cold War began in earnest. Over succeeding years the nuclear arsenals of East and West grew in size and potency, so that by the early 1980s some 60,000 separate nuclear warheads were in place around the world with a combined power of a million Hiroshimas – sufficient to kill mankind several times over. To any sane observer this was madness and something had to be done, but both sides seemed locked into a macabre nuclear embrace, as mutual fear, opposing ideologies and the demands of their respective military-industrial bureaucracies increased the momentum of nuclear-arms expansion. 

The veil of suspicion existing between the two sides inhibited meaningful dialogue. The core of the problem was summed up by a group of Harvard historians in 1983: ‘The United States cannot predict Soviet behaviour because it has too little information about what goes on in the Soviet Union; the Soviets cannot predict American behaviour because they have too much information.’ The Soviet leadership feared that it might be destroyed in a US first strike, which led to the development of a semi-automated retaliatory strike system that would operate after their deaths – the Dead Hand that provides the book’s title.

But in the end, both sides did see reason of a sort and while the world still bristles with nuclear weapons, the arms race itself was brought to a halt. David E. Hoffman, Washington Post journalist and its Moscow bureau chief from 1995 to 2001, tells the story of the people who effectively ended the Cold War. Key among these was Mikhail Gorbachev, who had the insight to realize that the game was up for the corrupt and virtually bankrupt Soviet Union, and the courage and political skill to bring the Soviet Empire to a virtually bloodless end. Hoffman rightly signals Gorbachev’s contribution, as he does his American counterpart, Ronald Reagan, although the US President’s mania for the SDI ballistic-missile shield prevented an opportunity to reduce nuclear-weapon stocks even further.  

While the core of the book is about nuclear arms and their containment, Hoffman also considers the other potential great military scourge of civilization: biological weapons. Although the Soviet Union signed up to the 1972 treaty renouncing biological weapons, covert research continued. The break up of the Soviet Union has provided potential opportunities for terrorist states and terrorist groups to secure the deadly pathogens manufactured in biological-weapon laboratories – as well as stocks of enriched uranium and plutonium for the manufacture of ‘dirty bombs’. 

The author’s fluent and even-handed narrative draws upon the insights provided by the main players in this great drama, and a particular strength is the detailed research conducted in the former Soviet Union. Hoffman praises the efforts of those who have tried to contain the dangers of such weapons of mass destruction, but he concludes: ‘They were only partially successful. Today, the weapons to destroy civilization, the legacy of the Cold War, are still with us. They are the Dead Hand of our time, a lethal machine that haunts the globe long after the demise of the men who created it.’

Icon Books, 594 pages, £20 (h/b)

 

 

 

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The Real German War Plan, 1904-14

TERENCE ZUBER
German strategy in the west in 1914 was based on a vast enveloping manoeuvre through Belgium and northern France that was designed to destroy the French Army and knock France out of the war. It had been formulated in 1905 by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to his retirement in 1906. He was succeeded by General Helmuth von Moltke, who, after initial reservations, adopted the plan and with some substantial modifications put it into practice in 1914. 

The Schlieffen plan has always been controversial in historical circles: was its eventual failure a consequence of inherent weaknesses or that of Moltke’s subsequent tinkering or, indeed, as a result of the actions by Moltke’s subordinate generals during the course of the campaign? But the reality of the plan itself was rarely in doubt, until a 1999 article by Terence Zuber for the academic journal War in History claimed that there was no such thing as a Schlieffen plan. 

Zuber has argued that Schlieffen’s Denkschrift (memorandum) of 1905 was not the template for the 1914 German invasion in the west, but more a positional paper whose true purpose was to reveal the manpower shortages faced by the German Army and the concomitant need to extend the scope of conscription in Germany. The plan itself, Zuber contends, was a postwar ‘invention’ by members of the German General Staff, eager to deflect criticism away from themselves and on the deceased Moltke, who was condemned for watering down the ‘master’s’ great concept. Zuber is also critical of the way in which military historians have readily accepted the plan as ‘common knowledge’.  

Complicating matters was the destruction of much of the German military archives in a British bombing raid on Berlin in 1945. It was believed that the key papers relating to the plan were lost, but since reunification some have come to light after their discovery in the former East Germany. It was on these discoveries that Zuber based his attack on the conventional view of German strategy in the west in 1914.  Unsurprisingly, his initial article did not go unchallenged and was attacked by several historians over a variety of issues. Zuber has stuck firmly to his guns, however, and this latest book, incorporating some new material, is both a summary of his position and a refutation of his critics.  

Hovering behind what most people would see as a purely academic (sterile?) argument is the question of German ‘war guilt’, with the Schlieffen plan produced as evidence of German aggression. Regarding just the plan itself, this would be unfair, as the key participants to the outbreak of war in 1914 all possessed war plans that emphasized offensive operations. Zuber, however, implausibly claims that Schlieffen proposed a simple counter-attacking strategy to contain both French and Russian attacks. But, of course, whatever Schlieffen proposed (or didn’t propose) was ultimately irrelevant. In 1914, the detailed German preparations for the destruction of Belgium’s forts and the subjugation of the country – whose neutrality Germany had previously guaranteed – was not the stuff of a ‘counter-attack’ but of full-scale invasion.   

As in previous books and articles, Zuber makes good points but overplays his hand and has the unfortunate tendency of cherry picking facts to fit the argument. He also displays an overly abrasive tone when confronting his critics, which will win him few friends among neutrals. Overall, a book for devotees of the 1914 campaign rather than the general military reader.   

History Press, 190 pages, £14.99 (p/b)  

 

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Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940

HENRIK O. LUNDE
If any single individual was responsible for the German invasion of Norway then it was Winston Churchill. As First Lord of the Admiralty he chafed at the inactivity of the Phoney War, and he considered Norway as a potential battleground. Germany relied on exports of Swedish iron ore, which during winter were shipped to Germany via the ice-free Norwegian port of Narvik. Despite claims to the contrary, the Norwegian operation was not essential to the German war effort, but Churchill saw intervention as way of extending the scope of the war, in the belief that the Royal Navy could inflict a powerful blow on its German equivalent in Northern waters and bring Scandinavia within the Allied orbit. As events were to reveal, this proved wishful thinking of the most dangerous kind.

Britain and France put pressure on Norway to end the iron-ore shipments, and drew up plans that ranged from mining Norwegian territorial waters to outright military deployment in both Norway and Sweden – all against neutral states. Although Hitler would have preferred to keep Scandinavia out of the military equation, he was concerned by growing intelligence of Allied intentions, and supported by elements within the Germany Navy who desired access to Norwegian ports he launched a pre-emptive strike.

The Norwegian-American historian Henrik O. Lunde has written a solid account of the campaign that is both informative and readable, with a focus on military operations that includes German, British, French and Norwegian perspectives. The German invasion – launched on 9 April 1940 – was a masterpiece of all-arms co-operation that, for the first time, was ‘three-dimensional’, relying on the co-ordination of air, land and sea forces that included parachute drops behind enemy lines.  The hapless Norwegians could do little to repel the German attack, and the Anglo-French response was poorly planned and, in the main, poorly executed. 

The German Navy did suffer heavy casualties and Narvik was eventually secured by the Allies, but by then it was too late; following the German invasion of the Low Countries and France, Narvik was abandoned on 8 June, the people of Norway left to endure German occupation for the next five years. Churchill, the prime mover behind the Allied disaster, escaped scot-free, much to his own surprise: ‘It was a marvel – I really do not know how – I survived and maintained my position in public esteem while all the blame was thrown on poor Mr. Chamberlain.’    

Casemate, 600 pages, £14.99 (p/b) 

 

 

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August 1914: Surrender at St Quentin

JOHN HUTTON
Accounts of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 have generally followed the lead set by the British Official History in emphasising the positive aspects of the campaign and downplaying anything negative. This has had the unfortunate consequence of obscuring the genuine historical record, where triumph and calamity often followed each other in quick succession. 

John Hutton has written a very good account of one of the more unfortunate and strange episodes during the retreat from Mons and Le Cateau (completely ignored in the Official History). The British II Corps suffered heavy casualties at Le Cateau, and many units withdrew from the battlefield in a state of disorder. Among these were two battalions of the 4th Division, the 1/Royal Warwickshire Regiment and the 2/Royal Dublin Fusiliers, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonels John Elkington and Arthur Mainwaring, respectively. 

Although some soldiers had become detached as they fell back from Le Cateau, the nucleus of the two battalions withdrew towards St Quentin in the hope of continuing the retreat by rail. Having reached the town, the exhausted and increasingly demoralised troops discovered that all trains had left. They also came across stragglers from other units in a decidedly mutinous mood, whose attitudes undoubtedly affected the men of the Warwicks and Dublin Fusiliers who now refused to move.

In desperation, the two battalion commanders asked the local mayor for assistance, but fearful of German retribution he demanded that they either leave the town immediately or sign a document of surrender. Elkington and Mainwaring erroneously believed the Germans were on the outskirts of St Quentin, and unbalanced by lack of sleep and the drama of events they signed the document. 

Fortunately for the British, Major Tom Bridges – a cavalry officer commanding one of the rearguards – managed to secure the surrender document from the mayor, and after much effort, he eventually rounded up the British troops in St Quentin and persuaded them to continue the march south to safety. A few days later Elkington and Mainwaring were court-martialled for their part in the affair, and although the threat of the firing squad hung over them they were cashiered from the Army in disgrace.

This well-researched book tells the story of the St Quentin ‘surrender’ with clarity and insight, and with compassion for the two officers who had been so overwhelmed by the shock of battle. Given the author’s legal background, it is little surprise that the narrative of the court proceedings against the defendants is particularly well presented. 

While Mainwaring retired into obscurity, there was an unusual coda to Elkington’s story. In early 1915, at the advanced age of 48, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and served bravely as a private soldier in the bloody Champagne battle in September 1915, where he was badly wounded. When news of his exploits spread to Britain, he was reinstated to his former rank by George V – his error of judgement redeemed by personal bravery.

Pen & Sword Military, 208 pages, £19.99 (h/b)

 

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A Coward if I Return, a Hero if I Fall

NEIL RICHARDSON (review by Richard S. Grayson)
In 2006, the National Museum of Ireland opened a new permanent exhibition, Soldiers and Chiefs, which examined the Irish at war since 1550. One of the largest parts of the exhibition was the section dealing with the First World War. One might expect that in any military museum but in Ireland this was a major step to take. Twenty years before, possibly only ten, no such move could have been made, with the general view among people in the Republic of Ireland (and among nationalists in the north) being that it was at best a mistake to join the British Army in 1914, at worst, treason against Ireland. That such an exhibition could be opened rested on work by many writers throughout Ireland resurrecting the story of Irish service in 1914-18.  

Beginning with landmarks such as Terence Denman’s Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers (1992) and Myles Dungan’s Irish Voices from the Great War (1995) there are now many books telling the story of Ireland’s role in the war.  A number of these, such as countless local ‘Book of Honour’ studies and Our War (2008) edited by John Horne are lavishly illustrated and use individual stories effectively to illustrate wider issues.

One might wonder then, what contribution another such volume could make? At first glance, Neil Richardson’s A Coward If I Return, A Hero if I Fall appears simply to be a collection of individual stories which the author has accumulated through personal connections with the individuals and through appeals through the media. However, it is actually very successful in finding individual stories that speak to broad points, and the work includes thoughtful comments on memory of the war and its place in Ireland today.

One of the great achievements of the book is to present to the public some truly new material which has not been available before. Especially striking is detailed information on the Rooney brothers, Catholics in the overwhelmingly Protestant Ulster Division. They served in the 14th Royal Irish Rifles, the one battalion in which there do appear to have been Catholics, but nobody has ever found any significant information on such men and Richardson is to be congratulated on doing so. There are also some remarkable stories of men who served in the British Army but later became IRA volunteers. One of these was Paddy Horkan from Castlebar, County Mayo. He encountered two heads of state: while on a stretcher at Arras he met King George V, and later at a ceremony for IRA veterans, he was introduced to Eamon de Valera.  Horkan’s medals from three armies (British, IRA and Irish Free State) are pictured in the book along with a photo of him meeting ‘Dev’.

For all the major events and themes of Irish service in the war there are similar individual case studies and this very rich text will be read with interest by all those seeking to understand the impact of the war on Ireland and the Irish.

O’Brien, 368 pages, £16.99 (p/b)

Richard S. Grayson is Professor of Twentieth-Century History at Goldsmiths, University of London and author of Belfast Boys: How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died Together in the First World War 

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