A welcome post-9/11 update of a book first published in 1985,
telling what it is like for the ordinary soldier at times of war.
Militiary historian Holmes gets behind the grand strategies,
preferring to focus on the led rather than the leaders and on the
human element rather than the technology. Fear plays a major part
in most soldiers' experiences on the battlefield, and when that is
coupled with hunger or lack of sleep, the level of personal
suffering cannot be overstated. Holmes covers the entire gamut of
war, from the call-up and indignities of basic training to the
moment of having to decide whether to kill or be killed. He ranges
over several centuries of battle and uses firsthand accounts from
those who took part in both world wars as well as the Falklands,
Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli conflicts. The book's black-and-white
photographs are in some cases not for the squeamish. This is war
with a real human face. (Kirkus UK)
This ambitious, wide-ranging, exhaustively researched book is a
compelling attempt to grasp the very nature of war. It takes us
through the soldier's experience in its entirety - from the
humiliation of basic training and the intense comradeship of army
life, to the terror, isolation and exhaustion of battle. What does
it feel like to be in the firing line? How does killing change a
man? And what do the extreme conditions of war reveal about a man's
basic instincts, his courage or his fear, his urge for
self-preservation or self-sacrifice? Covering several centuries of
warfare, and including the personal recollections of veterans from
two World Wars, from Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands and the
Arab-Israeli conflicts, Richard Holmes gives us a powerful picture
of what motivates the soldier and enables him to maintain the
struggle in conditions of extreme degradation and danger.
General
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