V.1 the war of the words. V.2 sexchanges.

In 1915 Massachusetts native Lorenzo N. Smith, roused by the newspaper reports of desecrated Belgium and France, crossed the Canadian border and joined the Wesmount Rifles. After stints with the First Canadian Contingent at Ypres, Festubert, Givenchy, Ploegsteert, and Messines, where he was, according to the original foreword, struck by a piece of shrapnel and removed from combat, Sgt. Smith joined the British-Canadian Recruiting Mission. Smith’s recruiting addresses were frequently followed by questions from the floor—“What d’ye mean by Blighty?’” and “What’s a ‘Whizbang?’”—and as a result, he compiled the Lingo of No Man’s Land, his dictionary of World War I slang. Originally published in 1918, Lingo of No Man’s Land provides fascinating contemporary insights into the soldier’s experience of the Great War. Among the terms and phrases defined within are “Cage–A wire enclosed structure to hold Fritz”; “Coote–A species of lice with extraordinary biting ability”; “Poultice wallopers–Hospital orderlies”; and “Rat poison–Affectionate term for cheese. The trench rats which swarm about are fed on cheese.” What is perhaps surprising for the modern reader is the number of words and phrases that Smith felt the need to define but are now considered commonplace—aerial photography, armored car, bomb, camouflage, concussion, and crater—a testament to how much English comes from World War I. Published again to coincide with the centennial of World War I, Lingo of No Man’s Land offers a unique perspective of life on the front lines and will be compulsory reading for all American and European history buffs.

"Central Vietnam. 1975. A young peasant woman, happily married to a successful farmer, returns to her house in the countryside to find a thong of villagers assembled around her gate. She learns that her first husband - who reportedly died as a martyr and war hero many years earlier - is in fact alive and has returned to claim her. Faced with immense pressure from the community and the Party authorities, she agrees to leave her second husband and their son to live in a squalid shack with the veteran." "This tragic twist of fate sets the stage for Duong Thu Huong's tale of three individuals whose destinies are inextricably linked and irrevocably altered by the absurdity of war. As the riveting story unfolds, each of the parties in this fateful love triangle struggles to reconcile personal happiness with traditional values of duty and selflessness. Together, these characters offer a devastating portrait of a people sacrificed on the altar of war and to a cult of heroism."--BOOK JACKET.

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE BBC DRAMA THE CRIMSON FIELD 'On the face of it, ' writes Lyn Macdonald, 'no one could have been less equipped for the job than these gently nurtured girls who walked straight out of Edwardian drawing rooms into the manifest horrors of the First World War ...' Yet the volunteer nurses rose magnificently to the occasion. In leaking tents and draughty huts they fought another war, a war against agony and death, as men lay suffering from the pain of unimaginable wounds or diseases we can now cure almost instantly. It was here that young doctors frantically forged new medical techniques - of blood transfusion, dentistry, psychiatry and plastic surgery - in the attempt to save soldiers shattered in body or spirit. And it was here that women achieved a quiet but permanent revolution, by proving beyond question they could do anything. All this is superbly captured in The Roses of No Man's Land, a panorama of hardship, disillusion and despair, yet also of endurance and supreme courage. 'Lyn Macdonald writes splendidly and touchingly of the work of the nurses and doctors who fought their humanitarian battle on the Western Front' Sunday Telegraph Over the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a popular reputation as an author and historian of the First World War. Her books are based on the accounts of eyewitnesses and survivors, told in their own words, and cast a unique light on the First World War. Most are published by Penguin.

As the post-9/11 wars wind down, a literature professor at West Point explores what it means for soldiers, and our country, to be caught between war and peace. In her critically acclaimed, award-winning book Soldier's Heart, Elizabeth D. Samet grappled with the experience of teaching literature at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Now, with No Man's Land, Samet contends that we are entering a new moment: a no man's land between war and peace. Major military deployments are winding down, but soldiers are wrestling with the aftermath of war and the trials of returning home while also facing the prospect of low-intensity conflicts for years to come. Drawing on a range of experiences-from a visit to a ward of wounded combat veterans to correspondence with former cadets, from a conference on Edith Wharton and wartime experience to teaching literature and film to future officers-Samet illuminates an ambiguous passage through no man's land that has left deep but difficult-to-read traces on our national psyche, our culture, our politics, and, most especially, an entire generation of military professionals. In No Man's Land, Elizabeth D. Samet offers a moving, urgent examination of what it means to negotiate the tensions between war and peace, between "over there" and "over here"-between life on the front and life at home. She takes the reader on a vivid tour of this new landscape, marked as much by the scars of war as by the ordinary upheavals of homecoming, to capture the essence of our current historical moment.

Writing a War of Words is the first exploration of the war-time quest by Andrew Clark - a writer, historian, and volunteer on the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary - to document changes in the English language from the start of the First World War up to 1919. Clark's unique series of lexical scrapbooks, replete with clippings, annotations, and real-time definitions, reveals a desire to put living language history to the fore, and to create a record of often fleeting popular use. The rise of trench warfare, the Zeppelinophobia of total war, and descriptions of shellshock (and raid shock on the Home Front) all drew his attentive gaze. The archive includes examples from a range of sources, such as advertising, newspapers, and letters from the Front, as well as documenting social issues such as the shifting forms of representation as women 'did their bit' on the Home Front. Lynda's Mugglestone's fascinating investigation of this valuable archive reassesses the conventional accounts of language history during this period, recuperates Clark himself as another 'forgotten lexicographer', challenges the received wisdom on the inexpressibilities of war, and examines the role of language as an interdisciplinary lens on history.

V.1 the war of the words. V.2 sexchanges.

Set in France during World War l, No Man's Land pulls us into the lives of the young men of the Newfoundland Regiment as they prepare to set out for the trenches and what will come to be known as the Battle of the Somme. A classic war novel, the book is equally effective in its portrayal of the camaraderie and unnatural quiet before the storm, as in its graphic acccount of the fight to make it through the barbed wire and sweep of machine-gun bullets. Two hundred and seventy-two Newfoundlanders who went over the top on July 1, 1916 were killed. No regiment suffered more casualties. It was the single greatest disaster in the island's history.

Seventeen-year-old Jacob Todd is about to discover himself. Jacob's plan is to go to Amsterdam to honor his grandfather who died during World War II. He expects to go, set flowers on his grandfather's tombstone, and explore the city. But nothing goes as planned. Jacob isn't prepared for love&150or to face questions about his sexuality. Most of all, he isn't prepared to hear what Geertrui, the woman who nursed his grandfather during the war, has to say about their relationship. Geertrui was always known as Jacob's grandfather's kind and generous nurse. But it seems that in the midst of terrible danger, Geertrui and Jacob's grandfather's time together blossomed into something more than a girl caring for a wounded soldier. And like Jacob, Geertrui was not prepared. Geertrui and Jacob live worlds apart, but their voices blend together to tell one story&150a story that transcends time and place and war. By turns moving, vulnerable, and thrilling, this extraordinary novel takes the reader on a memorable voyage of discovery.

When Benjamin Pogrund, one of South Africa's most distinguished journalists, first began his career as a young reporter in the 1950s, "There had been little reason at that stage to believe that anything revolutionary was about to start." As the "African affairs reporter," and then deputy editor, it was Pogrund who first brought the words of black leaders like Robert Sobukwe and Nelson Mandela to the pages of South Africa's leading newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail. This was the period of apartheid in South Africa and for most of the next thirty years, the Rand Daily Mail was the country's liberal white voice against the tyranny of the Afrikaner Nationalist government. A riveting memoir and a complex commentary on apartheid and freedom of the press, War of Words offers an insider's perspective on one of the most turbulent, and arguably one of the most significant, periods in modern history.