[.ca] Forgotten Voices of the Great War: The First Year CD: ... (ISBN 1856868001)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Max Arthur's compilation of First World War memories, Forgotten Voices of the Great War, offers a reminder of the scale of human experience within the 1914-18 conflict. Arthur, a military historian best known for his history of the RAF and his account of the Falklands campaign in 1982, has assembled hundreds of excerpts from the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum. Officers, rank-and-file troops, Australians, Americans, war widows, women in the munitions factories, and German soldiers too, all left oral testimony of their experiences, and these interviews provide the basis of the book. Arthur has put them in chronological and campaign order, and provided a general commentary, but beyond that, has left the rich and moving record to speak for itself. The sheer humdrum ordinariness of modern warfare--the mud and rain, the relentless loss of life and inevitability of death, the pointless routine of attrition--come over in the matter-of-fact recollections of so many. But so too does the humanity and morality of the ordinary soldier--a factor that rather belies the recent emphasis amongst some historians on how soldiers loved to kill. Arthur might have intruded more. No biographical information is given about the owners of these "voices", nor does he say when, where and how this oral testimony was gathered. These quibbles aside this is a worthwhile read and should encourage people not only to observe a minute's silence on Remembrance Day, but also to spend a few hours in the Imperial War Museum itself. --Miles Taylor

Fascinating wartime experiences by those who fought it:
This book is full of fascinating wartime anecdotes given by the soldiers fighting it and the citizens involved in it. The staff of the UK's Imperial War Museum sifted through mountains of archives and picked out the very best to use in the book. Through the use of their own personal letters/interviews, the book follows the history of particular, mostly British, individuals during the war. It loosely follows the major battles of the Western Front and Gallipoli and even the Home Front. Most of the letters vary in length between one paragraph and one page and are packed with the kind of realistic details that typical narrative histories of the World War I skip over. For example, in Gallipoli (p. 118) one soldier writes, "One of the biggest curses was flies. Millions and millions of flies. ... Immediately you bared any part of your body you were smothered." Short of actually being there, these kind of first person participant narratives deliver the essence of the war - harsh, demanding, brutal, comedic, and ocassionally surreal. The straightforward writing styles and unusual content make this book a true pleasure to read. I have read over 40 books about the Great War, and this book is one of the best for personal narratives about the war. It's multi-person perspective delivers a well-balanced, insightful picture of the war at ground level (free of any hidden agenda). This book would perfectly complement a broad narrative history of World War I.

A Great Read & Excellent History:
Max Arthur's new book covering the Great War is quite unique in that its content is nearly all first-hand accounts from people who experienced the horror of the Great War. The author has utilized a number of tape recorded interviews conducted by the Imperial War Museum in 1972. Many of the tapes from the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive had been forgotten and left unheard for years. Now Max Arthur has put together many of these unheard voices from the Great War to produce this spellbinding and captivating book. I must admit that I was reluctant to buy this book as I was worried that a book full of short accounts would be too disjointed and really not detailed enough to satisfy my interest. I can honestly say that I truly enjoyed reading this book. Each chapter of the book was a year of the Great War and was commenced by an introduction by the author offering a brief run down on the major events of that year. Then we heard from the men and women who participated in these events, from both sides of no-man's land. The author has concentrated mainly on the Western Front and Gallipoli and has tried to run the oral segments in chronological order. I was really taken by these segments and I found it hard to stop reading. The accounts from these soldiers and civilians alike were at times humorous, strikingly direct, horrifying and on many occasions quite sad. I was really taken in by these accounts and I don't think that any World War One library would be complete without this title sitting on the shelf. I can honestly say that I learnt quite a few things from this book and I would place it along side such works offered by Lyn MacDonald. Well done to the author and the Imperial War Museum for allowing these veterans, many now long dead, the last word on their experiences in the Great War. This is a great book, you won't be disappointed.