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Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2018The Victorian soldier in Africa
by Edward Spiers, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie
The Victorian soldier in Africa re-examines the campaign experience of British soldiers in Africa during the period, 1874-1902 - the zenith of the Victorian imperial expansion - and does so from the perspective of the regimental soldier. The book utilises an unprecedented number of letters and diaries, written by regimental officers and other ranks, to allow soldiers to speak for themselves about their experience of colonial warfare. The sources demonstrate the adaptability of the British army in fighting in different climates, over demanding terrain and against a diverse array of enemies. They also uncover soldiers' responses to army reforms of the era as well as the response to the introduction of new technologies of war. Moreover, the book provides commentary on soldiers' views of commanding officers and politicians alongside assessment of war correspondents, colonial auxiliaries and African natives in their roles as bearers, allies and enemies. This book reveals new insights on imperial and racial attitudes within the army, on relations between soldiers and the media and the production of information and knowledge from frontline to homefront. It will make fascinating reading for students, academics and enthusiasts in imperial history, Victorian studies, military history and colonial warfare.
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American Civil WarA Light and Uncertain Hold
A History of the Sixty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry
by David Thackery (author)
Curiosity piqued by two poems written by his great-great-grandmother initiated David Thackery’s scholarly exploration into the history of the Sixty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry and the wartime history of Champaign County, Ohio, from which it was recruited.Not only a military history, A Light and Uncertain Hold is also a penetrating and provocative social history which deals with the homefront, morale, reenlistment, and the memory and commemoration of the war. The words and stories of individual soldiers give depth and substance to the regiment’s experience.
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March 2020No Small Shame
One wrong choice will change her life forever
by Christine Bell
Australia, 1914. The world is erupting in war. Jobs are scarce and immigrants unwelcome. For young Catholic Mary O’Donnell, this is not the new life she imagined. When one foolish night of passion leads to an unexpected pregnancy and a loveless marriage, Mary’s reluctant husband Liam escapes to the trenches. With her overbearing mother attempting to control her every decision, Mary flees to Melbourne determined to build a life for herself and her child. There, she forms an unlikely friendship with Protestant army reject Tom Robbins. But as a shattering betrayal is revealed, Mary must make an impossible choice. Does she embrace the path fate has set for her, or follow the one she longs to take? From the harshness of a pit village in Scotland to the upheaval of wartime Australia, No Small Shame tells the moving story of love and duty, loyalty and betrayal, and confronting the past before you can seek a future.
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American Civil WarBanners South
A Northern Community at War
by Edmund J. Raus (author)
The personal story of the men and women of Cortland, New York and their efforts to support the war effortMost regimental histories focus narrowly on military affairs and the battlefield exploits to the exclusion of the broader social and political context, while community studies examine civilian life divorced of the military situation. Banners South documents the influences and events that define the Civil War from the perspective of Northern soldiers and civilians, moving beyond the boundaries of the battlefield by exploring the civilian community, Cortland, New York, which contributed many men to the 23d New York Volunteers.Author Ed Raus uses original source material to examine the Northern soldier—his attitude toward Southerners, blacks, and officers and reasons why he fought —and provides detailed portrayals of major battles (Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg). He also explores the New Yorkers’ experiences with Southern civilians, including women and slaves, when the troops served as an occupying force in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The 23d New York served during the first two years of the Civil War, and the men from Cortland found their tour hard to forget. As Raus’s study reveals, many of the unit’s survivors had a difficult time resuming their peaceful, prewar lives.Raus narrates these men’s stories of war and homefront with care and thoughtful analysis. Banners South promises to alter the traditional genre of regimental histories and will be of interest to Civil War scholars and buffs alike.This is the first book in the Civil War in the North Series which will highlight innovative scholarship that broadens our understanding of what the American Civil War meant to Northern society. This new series will encompass overlooked and under-researched topics, from the battlefield to the homefront, from the antebellum era through Reconstruction.
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A Few Small Candles
War Resisters of World War II Tell Their Stories
by Larry Gara (author)
Little is known about those who openly refused to enter military service in World War II because of their convictions against killing. While many of those men accepted alternative civilian service, more than 6,000 were incarcerated with sentences ranging from a few months to five years. Some were tried, convicted, and reimprisoned for essentially the same offense—resisting induction into the armed forces—after their initial release.In A Few Small Candles, ten men tell why they resisted, what happened to them, and how they feel about that experience today. Their stories detail the resisters’ struggles against racial segregation in prison, as well as how they instigated work and hunger strikes to demonstrate against other prison injustices. Each of the ten has remained active in various causes relating to peace and social justice.This is a unique collection of memoirs that illuminated the American homefront during World War II and provides an important source for those interested in the American peace movement.
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American Civil WarBehind Bayonets
The Civil War in Northern Ohio
by David Van Tassel (author)
A valuable addition to the literature on Ohio and the Civil WarEminent Cleveland historian David Van Tassel had undertaken the challenge of writing an illustrated history of the Cleveland homefront during the Civil War. Unfortunately, he died in 2000 before completing his manuscript. Historian John Vacha completed the final chapters using notes, lists, and ideas that Van Tassel had gathered, and their efforts are presented in Behind Bayonets.Behind Bayonets focuses on Ohio’s substantial role in the Civil War. It is perhaps the only work that uses published and unpublished sources written by northeast Ohioans to comment on the causes, course, and purpose of the war. It does not provide an overview of battles, but it does address soldiers’ enlistments and early camp experiences, women’s experiences, public reactions to emancipation and the general political interest in the war, local business growth during the war, and Lincoln’s assassination and the funeral train’s stop in Cleveland.The authors use moving first-person commentaries and accounts to illustrate and explain these issues and situations. Additionally, the text is lavishly illustrated with rare photographs from the Western Reserve Historical Society’s archives.This regional perspective on the war is a noteworthy addition to Civil War literature, offering insight into what was going on at home while the war was being fought.
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March 2014Murder in Caney Fork
by Wally Avett
It’s the trial of the century in a 1940’s North Carolina town. Murder and vigilante justice. War hero and law student Wes Ross has to save his uncle—but hide the truth. Taught to shoot in the rough logging camps of the North Carolina swamps, Wes Ross remembers his lessons well. Dodging hostile gunfire with dozens of other young Marines, he storms a remote Pacific island as one of Carlson's Raiders in the first commando-style attack of World War II. He blasts several Japanese snipers from their palm-tree hideouts with buckshot before an enemy bullet sends him home. The Carolina homefront includes a new girlfriend and a new occupation, learning to be a rural lawyer in his uncle's law office, including courtroom intrigue and what goes on behind the scenes. Wes, like his uncles, is a good man, the kind who takes up for the poor and downtrodden, looking out for those who are easy prey for bullies. Frog Cutshaw is the storekeeper in the Caney Fork backwoods, a swaggering ex-moonshiner who is deadly with his ever-present .45 auto pistol. Frog's daylight rape of a married woman and the brutal killing of her husband bring on Bible Belt vigilante justice, an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Wally Avett is a retired newspaperman. He lives in North Carolina.
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Historical fictionJune 2022The Danish Soldier
The untold story of WW2
by Emilia Hansen
A romantic and epic wartime story about secrets, hidden love, hope and friendship. Tim and Lilly belong to two different worlds. She's part of the German upperclass and he's a fieldworker belonging to the impoverished Danish minority in Northern Germany. Despite their differences and the raging war, they fall head over heels in love because both of them dream of a different life than the one duty and the fatherland dictate. They are in love, but their love must remain a secret as they will be ostracized by both their communities if someone finds out. When Tim is drafted to the German army and sent to the Eastern front, they are separated and face their own war. For Tim it's a brutal battle of life and death and at the homefront Lilly is fighting hard to avoid an appropriate wedding and to hold on to her dream of becoming a vetenarian. But war steals lifes as well as dreams and if Tim makes it home, it's not certain that he's still the same - or Lilly is. About the book • A captivating love story between a poor farm boy and a noble beauty • The untold story of the Danish minority in Germany during WW2• A popular Second World War setting• A gripping saga novel
