National Service by Richard Vinen
Winner of the Sunday Times Books of the Year and Financial Times Books of the Year 2014, this title attempts to get to grips with the reality of National Service, an extraordinary institution which now seems as remote as the British Empire itself.
Vinen's clever and careful book is surely the definitive history of the two million young men conscripted into the British Army from the end of the Second World War to the early 1960sThe era of national service now seems like ancient history, but from the routines of the parade ground to the horrors of Korea, Vinen restores it to life with a searching eye for detail and impressive human sympathy -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
Written with compassion and insight, Vinen's book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of postwar Britain by examining the relatively shortlived experiment with military service . . . [Vinen] draws parallels with the experience of France, on whose modern history he has published several fine books -- Tony Barber * Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
National Service may prove to be the most original social history book of 2014. It is written with cool, elegant lucidity and there are neither ideological tricks nor obscure jargon. The book is bigger than its ostensible subject, embracing class, masculinity, sexuality, compliance, rebellion, combat atrocities, petty crime, notions of national identity, group solidarity, the fallibility of memory and what it means to be a man -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Guardian *
Vinen has given us the kind of book that every professional historian surely wants to write: not only with a mastery of its voluminous original sources but also a sensitivity to the rich human detail, by turns authoritative, thoughtful, poignant - and funny -- Peter Clarke * Financial Times *
[Vinen] has a good eye, and clear relish, for institutional absurdity -- John Sutherland * Evening Standard *
Written with compassion and insight, Vinen's book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of postwar Britain by examining the relatively shortlived experiment with military service . . . [Vinen] draws parallels with the experience of France, on whose modern history he has published several fine books -- Tony Barber * Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
National Service may prove to be the most original social history book of 2014. It is written with cool, elegant lucidity and there are neither ideological tricks nor obscure jargon. The book is bigger than its ostensible subject, embracing class, masculinity, sexuality, compliance, rebellion, combat atrocities, petty crime, notions of national identity, group solidarity, the fallibility of memory and what it means to be a man -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Guardian *
Vinen has given us the kind of book that every professional historian surely wants to write: not only with a mastery of its voluminous original sources but also a sensitivity to the rich human detail, by turns authoritative, thoughtful, poignant - and funny -- Peter Clarke * Financial Times *
[Vinen] has a good eye, and clear relish, for institutional absurdity -- John Sutherland * Evening Standard *
Richard Vinen is the author of the highly-praised A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century, The Unfree French: Life under the Occupation (published by Penguin) and Thatcher's Britain. He is Professor of History at King's College, London.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781846143878 |
| ISBN 10 | 184614387X |
| Title | National Service |
| Author | Richard Vinen |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2014-08-28 |
| Number of pages | 640 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |