A groundbreaking volume that represents the first examination of cultural production amongst Italian prisoners of warCaptivity and Creativity explores the artistic and material production by Italian prisoners of war (POWs) and some civilian internees who were captured by the Western Allies in 1940–43 and detained in prison camps scattered across Africa, Australia, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States during World War II. Twelve chapters discuss...

What is often held to be Britain's 'finest hour' – the Second World War – was not experienced so uniformly across the British Isles. On the margins, the war was endured in profoundly different ways. While D-Day or Dunkirk is embedded in British collective memory, how many Britons can recall that Finns were interned on the Isle of Man, that enemy soldiers developed British infrastructure in Orkney, or that British subjects were sent to concentration camps from Guernsey? Such experiences, ta...

An in-depth historical study of Nova Scotia's role in WWI and its lingering impact on the region, its people, and its economy.Though the First World War ended in 1918, it continued to haunt Canada for generations. In Nova Scotia at War, 1915-1919, historian Brian Douglas Tennyson examines what was, for the people of Canada, an unprecedented period collective military trauma. As Tennyson demonstrates, the war effort didn't end with the brave soldiers and sa...

Canada From Afar is the fruit of the remarkable flowering of obituary writing in the London Daily Telegraph during the past ten years. These lively portraits of Canadians are informed, witty, sometimes quirky, occasionally iconoclastic.They include royal courtiers, politicians, businessmen, soldiers, sailors, airmen, scientists, explorers, novelists, artists, and even journalists. Among the prominent Canadians viewed from afar are persons such as Margaret Laurence, Joey Smallwood, K.C. Irv...

An accomplished Scottish journalist, soldier, head of intelligence, and Member of Parliament, John Buchan (1875-1940) is best known for penning thrillers such as The Thirty-Nine Steps. However, as Canada's 15th governor general (1935-40), Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, played a significant leadership role as a statesman and diplomat.Buchan was the first governor general appointed after the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which gave Canada constitutional equality with Britain. ...

The First World War appears as a fault line in Britain’s twentieth-century history. Between August 1914 and November 1918 the titanic struggle against Imperial Germany and her allies consumed more people, more money and more resources than any other conflict that Britain had hitherto experienced. For the first time, it opened up a Home Front that stretched into all parts of the British polity, society and culture, touching the lives of every citizen regardless of age, gender and class: veg...

With her soft linen head scarf and white apron emblazoned with a red cross, the Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, or VAD, has become a romantic emblem of the First World War. This Small Army of Women draws on diaries, letters, and interviews to tell the forgotten story of the nearly two thousand women from Canada and Newfoundland who volunteered to “do their bit” at home and overseas.Middle-class and well-educated but largely untrained, VADs were excluded from Canadian milit...

From May 1940, the Children's Overseas Reception Board began to move children to Australia, South Africa, Canada and New Zealand for their own safety during the Second World War. The scheme was extremely popular, and over 200,000 applications were made within just four months, while thousands of children were also sent to be privately evacuated overseas. The 'sea-vacs', as they became known, had a variety of experiences.After weeks at sea, they began new lives thou...

This book is volume one of a two-part series (volumes sold separately). Taken together, the two volumes of A Philosopher at War examine the political thought of the philosopher and archaeologist, R.G. Collingwood, against the background of the First and Second World Wars. Collingwood served in Admiralty Intelligence during the First World War and although he was not physically robust enough to play an active role in the Second World War, he was swift to condemn the policies of appeasement ...

"Headaches. Dizziness. Can't sleep. Bad dreams (never have been released). The rice jungle had some compensation to some of us who just don't seem to make a success of our return." —Robert, A Returned POWThis landmark and compelling book follows the stories of 15,000 Australian prisoners of war from the moment they were released by the Japanese at the end of World War II. Drawing on the records of the Prisoner of War Trust Fund for the first time, this book presents the struggles of...

Who are the British today? For nearly three hundred years British national identity was a unifying force in times of glory and despair. It has now virtually disappeared. In Patriots, Richard Weight explores the decline of Britishness and the rise of powerful new identities in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Based on a wealth of original research, it is scholarly in depth and scope, yet never departs from a thoroughly readable and entertaining style.'Here are the themes of Orw...

'Endlessly fascinating. . . White is such a brilliant historian' Mail on SundayLasting for six long years, the Blitz transformed life in the capital beyond recognition, marking a time of almost constant anxiety, disruption, deprivation and sacrifice for Londoners. With the capital the nation's frontline during the Second World War, by its end, 30,000 inhabitants had lost their lives.While much has been written about 'the Myth of the Blitz', its riv...