Alan Allport. Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War, 1939-1945. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015. Alan’s –– since he’s a longtime friend of this blog I feel justified in the slight informality — last book looked at what happened to the British soldier when he went home after the Second […]
David Clarke. How UFOs Conquered the World: The History of a Modern Myth. London: Aurum Press, 2015. Clarke is a journalist and academic who has also worked with the National Archives on the declassification of Britain’s official UFO files. Here he takes a wider view, providing a social history of ufology (a subject he has
Blaine R. Pardoe. Never Wars: The US Plans to Invade the World. Fonthill: 2014. NB: ‘Plans’ is a noun, not a verb! This is a summary and analysis of various war plans made by the United States between the 1900s and the 1940s, from the Azores to Mexico. Two versions of War Plan Red, war
I found this pro-disarmament poster on eBay (at US$1985, I won’t be buying it!) The text reads: THE TRANSPORT OF THE FUTURE. FOR WHAT? DEATH AND DESTRUCTION OR FRIENDSHIP AND PEACE Abolish All War Aeroplanes This is the seller’s own description: An incredibly rare original vintage anti-war poster circa 1938 in fine condition, archivally mounted
William Mulligan. The Great War for Peace. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014. It may not have been the war that ended war, but Mulligan argues that we nevertheless shouldn’t underestimate the contribution the First World War made to peace, not only through the usual suspects (the League of Nations and a slew
Amanda Laugesen, Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War, South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2015. Did you know that a word as quintessentially Aussie as ‘Aussie’ was a product of the First World War? Well, you do now, because I just told you; and I know it because I just read it (among
Errol W. Martyn. A Passion for Flight: New Zealand Aviation Before the Great War. Volume 2: Aero Clubs, Aeroplanes, Aviators and Aeronauts 1910-1914. Upper Riccarton: Volplane Press, 2013. Errol W. Martyn. A Passion for Flight: New Zealand Aviation Before the Great War. Volume 3: The Joe Hammond Story and Military Beginnings 1910-1914. Upper Riccarton: Volplane
I’d forgotten that today was the 70th anniversary of the Dresden firestorm, but luckily the producers of Up All Night on BBC Radio 5 Live remembered. I spoke to presenter Dotun Adebayo and fellow historian Raymond Sun this afternoon (just before 5am Greenwich Mean Time), and for the next 29 days you can listen to
Hector Hawton. Night Bombing. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1944. A rather interesting secondhand bookshop find. Hawton was a novelist, rationalist and during the war a flight lieutenant in the RAFVR. Here he has written an explanation, a history, and a justification of British bombing strategy in the Second World War. It’s less overtly propagandistic
John A. Moses and Christopher Pugsley, eds. The German Empire and Britain’s Pacific Dominions 1871-1919: Essays on the Role of Australia and New Zealand in World Politics in the Age of Imperialism. Claremont: Regina Books, 2000. The outcome of a conference held at the University of New England (i.e. where I am, which is how
