A War in Words

by Sarah Wallis (Author), Svetlana Palmer (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.25

  This is a portrait of World War I through the letters and diaries of its participants, recently uncovered during extensive research across 28 countries for the 10-part Channel 4 series, The First World War , showing during autumn 2003. Combatants, eyewitnesses and victims talk directly to us from within the war itself and from all sides of the conflict. Their testimony - from that of one of Franz Ferdinand's assassins, to the final entry from a French soldier as he revisits the battlefield in 1919 - recounts the complex history of a war whose repercussions changed the world irrevocably.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.25

  Departing radically from traditional histories, A WAR IN WORDS tells the story of the First World War on a compelling, human scale through the letters and diaries of its participants -- whether combatants, eyewitnesses or victims. Powerful individual stories are interwoven to form an extraordinary narrative that follows the chronology of the war, in words written on the battlefield and on leave, under occupation and under siege. Taking us from the killing fields of the Western Front to the unforgiving waters of the North Sea, it is a remarkable new insight into the British at war, and a major addition to First World War literature.