This book surveys and examines the history of Britain's soldiers from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. It focuses on the lifecycle of a soldier, including enlistment and experience, and on identity, representations and place in society. It covers the diverse military forces of the British crown - the regular army, home defence forces, part-time soldiers, auxiliaries, officers, non-commissioned officers and rank and file - across times of conflictand peace and their wider relationsh...

A timely work of major historical importance, examining the whole spectrum of events from the 1916 Easter Rising to the current and ongoing peace process, fully updated with a new afterword for the paperback edition.‘An essential book … closely-reasoned, formidably intelligent and utterly compelling … required reading across the political spectrum … important and riveting’ Roy Foster, The Times‘An outstanding new book on the IRA … a calm, rational but in the end de...

The Australian experience of war in all its complexity - from the homefront as well as the battlefront - as the men and women who experienced it chose to understand and remember it.Winner of the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Australian History.The Great War is, for many Australians, the event that defined our nation. The larrikin diggers, trench warfare, and the landing at Gallipoli have become the stuff of the Anzac 'legend'. But it was also a w...

A gripping narrative of the most critical years in modern Ireland's history, from Charles TownshendThe protracted, terrible fight for independence pitted the Irish against the British and the Irish against other Irish. It was both a physical battle of shocking violence against a regime increasingly seen as alien and unacceptable and an intellectual battle for a new sort of country. The damage done, the betrayals and grim compromises put the new nation into a state ...

This book is a collection of essays arising out of the Zealandias Great War conference organised by the New Zealand Military History Committee in November 2003. In 32 essays by distinguished military historians from New Zealand and around the world, various aspects of New Zealands involvement in World War One are discussed. Subjects include the Pioneer Maori Battalion, women who opposed the war, the early years of the RSA, Gallipoli, the infantry on the Somme, New Zealands involvement in t...

The Highland Clearances stands out as one of the most emotive chapters in the history of Scotland. This book traces the origins of the Clearances from the eighteenth century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s. In considering both the terrible suffering of the Highland people as well as the stark choices that faced landowners during a period of rapid economic change, it shows how the Clearances were one of many 'attempted' solutions to the problem of how to mainta...

"A sweeping riveting history that manages to capture the essence of the conflict, as well as the contributions of particular schools and individuals." — HMC Insight MagazineIn this pioneering and original book, Anthony Seldon and David Walsh study the impact that the public schools had on the conduct of the Great War, and vice versa. Drawing on fresh evidence from 200 leading public schools and other archives, they challenge the conventional wisdom...

Within months of first publication, Michael Hopkinson's study of the Irish War of Independence established itself as by far most comprehensive and evocative account of the role played by the conflict in shaping modern Ireland. It has been welcomed both by scholars and the general public alike, and gone further than perhaps any other recent publication in recasting our understanding of Ireland's decisive confrontation with the military might of the British Empire.

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. ...

A provocative account of the 78th Fraser’s Highlanders and its crucial place in history.The remarkable story of the men of the 78th Fraser’s Highlanders moves from the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland, through the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution, to the War of 1812.Simon Fraser, chief of the Clan Fraser of Lovat, raised the 78th Highlanders, a regiment that played a major role in defeating the French on the Plains of Abraham. Driv’n by F...

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...

World War One had a devastating, cataclysmic impact on the world and the British people. As its reverberations were so long-lasting and significant, it is easy to assume that the social consequences were as profound.In this highly readable and moving survey of life back at home during the First World War, Gerard DeGroot challenges this assumption, finding pre-war social structures were surprisingly resilient. Despite economic and technological changes, the British people managed to...