Winner of both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and named by the Modern Library one of the twentieth century's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books, Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory was universally acclaimed on publication in 1970. Today, Fussell's landmark study remains as original and gripping as ever: a literate, literary, and unapologetic account of the Great War, the war that changed a generation, ushered in the modern era, and revolutionized how we see the world. This brilliant work illuminates the trauma and tragedy of modern warfare in fresh, revelatory ways. Exploring the work of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden, David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen, Fussell supplies contexts, both actual and literary, for those writers who--with conspicuous imaginative and artistic meaning--most effectively memorialized World War I as an historical experience. Dispensing with literary theory and elevated rhetoric, Fussell grounds literary texts in the mud and trenches of World War I and shows how these poems, diaries, novels, and letters reflected the massive changes--in every area, including language itself--brought about by the cataclysm of the Great War. For generations of readers, this work has represented and embodied a model of accessible scholarship, huge ambition, hard-minded research, and haunting detail. Restored and updated, this new edition includes an introduction by historian Jay Winter that takes into account the legacy and literary career of Paul Fussell, who died in May 2012.

More than eight million young men perished during the First World War—a staggering figure. The natural reaction to such a great loss of humanity was to forget the individuals and recast the conflict into one of faceless armies and battles commemorated in stone and metal monuments. War Letters of Fallen Englishmen was published following the war in order to remind the living of those who were lost in the name of the British crown—brothers, husbands, fathers, sons. This collection provides, in the very words of those who participated and died in combat, the closest approximation possible to the experience of war. Carefully selected from thousands of letters, those in this collection are poignant, powerful, and graphic and were chosen for their depth of perception, the intensity of their descriptions, and their messages to future generations. This edition contains a new foreword by the distinguished World War I historian Jay Winter.

Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novella of the First World War, All Quiet on the Western Front, was an international sensation. Celebrated by countless readers for its moving depiction of the traumas suffered and the camaraderie shared in the trenches, the work also sparked controversy on all sides of the political spectrum, with Remarque, now a celebrity, claimed as a representative of various political causes. In this edition, Katharina Rout’s fresh, engaging English translation of All Quiet is accompanied by an informative introduction and illuminating contextual materials that help situate Remarque’s work among other literary and nonfictional accounts of the war experience and offer insight into how the novella was received.

A tremendous piece of research, conducted over ten years, in which are listed, in alphabetical order, the names of over 60,000 officers of the British Empire who died during the Great War, including nurses and female aid workers. Based on the CWGC Registers, the information provided includes not only that shown in ‘Officers Died' but also the place of burial or commemoration. The alphabetical listing means that looking up a name does not require prior knowledge of the regiment (as in ‘Officers Died') though this information is given, as well as cross-reference to the relevant page number in ‘Officers Died’.

The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan is the most extensive volume of original essays ever published on the seventeenth-century Nonconformist preacher and writer, John Bunyan. Its thirty-eight chapters examine Bunyan's life and works, their religious and historical contexts, and the critical reception of his writings, in particular his allegorical narrative, The Pilgrim's Progress. Interdisciplinary and comprehensive, it provides unparalleled scope and expertise, ranging from literary theory to religious history and from theology to post-colonial criticism. The Handbook is structured in four sections. The first, 'Contexts', deals with the historical Bunyan in relation to various aspects of his life, background, and work as a Nonconformist: from basic facts of biography to the nature of his church at Bedford, his theology, and the religious and political cultures of seventeenth-century Dissent. Part 2 considers Bunyan's literary output: from his earliest printed tracts to his posthumously published works. Offering discrete chapters on Bunyan's major works—Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), The Pilgrim's Progress, Parts I and II (1678; 1684); The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), and The Holy War (1682)—this section nevertheless covers Bunyan's oeuvre in its entirety: controversial and pastoral, narrative and poetic. Section 3, 'Directions in Criticism', engages with Bunyan in literary critical terms, focusing on his employment of form and language and on theoretical approaches to his writings: from psychoanalytic to post-secular criticism. Section 4, 'Journeys', tackles some of the ways in which Bunyan's works, and especially The Pilgrim's Progress, have travelled throughout the world since the late seventeenth century, assessing Bunyan's place within key literary periods and their distinctive developments: from the eighteenth-century novel to the writing of 'empire.'

The First World War claimed over 995,000 British lives, and its legacy continues to be remembered today. Great War Britain: Birmingham offers an intimate portrayal of the city and its people living in the shadow of the ’war to end all wars‘. A beautifully illustrated and highly accessible volume, it describes local reaction to the outbreak of war; charts the experience of individuals who enlisted; the changing face of industry; the work of the many hospitals in the area; the effect of the conflict on local children; the women who defied convention to play a vital role on the home front; and concludes with a chapter dedicated to how the city and its people coped with the transition to life in peacetime once more.The Great War story of Birmingham is told through the voices of those who were there and is vividly illustrated through evocative images from the archives of the Library of Birmingham.

Jeremy Paxman's magnificent history of the First World War tells the entire story of the war in one gripping narrative from the point of view of the British people. *** We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War? The well-known images - the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener; a Tommy buried in the mud of the Western Front; the memorial poppies of Remembrance Day - all reinforce the idea that it was a pointless waste of life. So why did the British fight it so willingly and how did the country endure it for so long? Using a wealth of first-hand source material, Jeremy Paxman brings vividly to life the day-to-day experience of the British over the entire course of the war, from politicians, newspapermen, campaigners and Generals, to Tommies, factory workers, nurses, wives and children. It shows how both British life and identity were utterly transformed - not always for the worst - by the enormous upheaval of the war. Rich with personalities, surprises and ironies, this lively narrative history paints a picture of courage and confusion, doubts and dilemmas, and is written with Jeremy Paxman's characteristic flair for storytelling, wry humour and pithy observation. *** "A fine introduction to the part Britain played in the first of the worst two wars in history. The writing is lively and the detail often surprising and memorable" Guardian "He writes so well and sympathetically, and chooses his detail so deftly, that if there is one new history of the war that you might actually enjoy from the very large centennial selection this is very likely it" The Times