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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2009

        A history of the Royal College of Nursing 1916–90

        A voice for nurses

        by Susan Mcgann, Anne Crowther, Rona Dougall

        This is the history of one of the largest nursing organizations in the world and one of the largest professional associations of women. The Royal College of Nursing began as a small professional association in 1916. Its work included nurses' education, professional policy and labour relations. It considers the history of nursing from political, social and economic points of view and sheds light on both gender relations and the position of women in the work place in Britain since 1916. The themes include the struggle to achieve professional status for nurses, the radicalization of nurses from the 1960s, the effect of immigration on nursing as a work force, gender relations within the profession and between nurses, their employers and other health professionals. This book will appeal to anyone interested in nursing studies, gender history and labour history. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Second World War
        July 2013

        The forgotten French

        by Nicholas Atkin

        It is widely assumed that the French in the British Isles during World War II were fully-fledged supporters of General De Gaulle, and that across the channel at least, the French were a "nation of resisters". This provocative study reveals that most exiles were on British soil by chance rather than by design, and many were not sure whether to stay. Overlooked by historians, who have concentrated on the "Free French" of De Gaulle, these were the "Forgotten French" - refugees swept off the beaches of Dunkirk; servicemen held in camps after the Franco-German armistice; Vichy consular officials left to cater for their compatriots; and a sizeable colonist community based mainly in London. Drawing on little-known archival sources, this study examines the hopes and fears of these communities who were bitterly divided among themselves, some being attracted to Petain as much as to De Gaulle. It also looks at how they fitted into British life and how the British in turn responded. The author finds that while the public was often charitable, the Government was suspicious of their loyalties and even considered general internment. Illustrated throughout, this should be essential reading for anyone interested in the British and French experiences of World War II.

      • Trusted Partner
        Second World War
        July 2013

        The forgotten French

        by Nicholas Atkin

        It is widely assumed that the French in the British Isles during World War II were fully-fledged supporters of General De Gaulle, and that across the channel at least, the French were a "nation of resisters". This provocative study reveals that most exiles were on British soil by chance rather than by design, and many were not sure whether to stay. Overlooked by historians, who have concentrated on the "Free French" of De Gaulle, these were the "Forgotten French" - refugees swept off the beaches of Dunkirk; servicemen held in camps after the Franco-German armistice; Vichy consular officials left to cater for their compatriots; and a sizeable colonist community based mainly in London. Drawing on little-known archival sources, this study examines the hopes and fears of these communities who were bitterly divided among themselves, some being attracted to Petain as much as to De Gaulle. It also looks at how they fitted into British life and how the British in turn responded. The author finds that while the public was often charitable, the Government was suspicious of their loyalties and even considered general internment. Illustrated throughout, this should be essential reading for anyone interested in the British and French experiences of World War II.

      • Trusted Partner
        Second World War
        July 2012

        The forgotten French

        by Nicholas Atkin

      • Trusted Partner
        First World War
        July 2013

        British Military Service Tribunals, 1916–18

        'A very much abused body of men'

        by James McDermott

        Military Service Tribunals were formed following the introduction of conscription in January 1916, to consider applications for exemption from military service. Swiftly, they gained two opposing yet equally unflattering reputations. In the eyes of the military, they were soft, obstructionist 'old duffers'. To most of the men who came before them, they were the unfeeling civilian arm of a remorseless grinding machine. This work, utilising a rare surviving set of Tribunal records, challenges both perspectives. Wielding unprecedented power yet acutely sensitive to the contradictions inherent in their task, the Tribunals were obliged, often at a conveyer belt's pace, to make decisions that often determined the fate of men. That some of these decisions were capricious or even wrong is indisputable; the sparse historiography of the Tribunals has too often focused upon the idiosyncratic example while ignoring the wider, impact of imprecise legislation, government hand-washing and short-term military exigencies.

      • Trusted Partner
        First World War
        July 2013

        British Military Service Tribunals, 1916–18

        'A very much abused body of men'

        by James McDermott

        Military Service Tribunals were formed following the introduction of conscription in January 1916, to consider applications for exemption from military service. Swiftly, they gained two opposing yet equally unflattering reputations. In the eyes of the military, they were soft, obstructionist 'old duffers'. To most of the men who came before them, they were the unfeeling civilian arm of a remorseless grinding machine. This work, utilising a rare surviving set of Tribunal records, challenges both perspectives. Wielding unprecedented power yet acutely sensitive to the contradictions inherent in their task, the Tribunals were obliged, often at a conveyer belt's pace, to make decisions that often determined the fate of men. That some of these decisions were capricious or even wrong is indisputable; the sparse historiography of the Tribunals has too often focused upon the idiosyncratic example while ignoring the wider, impact of imprecise legislation, government hand-washing and short-term military exigencies.

      • Trusted Partner
        First World War
        July 2012

        British Military Service Tribunals, 1916–18

        'A very much abused body of men'

        by James McDermott

        Military Service Tribunals were formed following the introduction of conscription in January 1916, to consider applications for exemption from military service. Swiftly, they gained two opposing yet equally unflattering reputations. In the eyes of the military, they were soft, obstructionist 'old duffers'. To most of the men who came before them, they were the unfeeling civilian arm of a remorseless grinding machine. This work, utilising a rare surviving set of Tribunal records, challenges both perspectives. Wielding unprecedented power yet acutely sensitive to the contradictions inherent in their task, the Tribunals were obliged, often at a conveyer belt's pace, to make decisions that often determined the fate of men. That some of these decisions were capricious or even wrong is indisputable; the sparse historiography of the Tribunals has too often focused upon the idiosyncratic example while ignoring the wider, impact of imprecise legislation, government hand-washing and short-term military exigencies.

      • Trusted Partner
        First World War
        July 2013

        Priestley’s England

        J. B. Priestley and English culture

        by John Baxendale

        Priestley's England is the first full-length academic study of J B Priestley - novelist, playwright, screen-writer, journalist and broadcaster, political activist, public intellectual and popular entertainer, one of the makers of twentieth-century Britain, and one of its sharpest critics. From his scathing analysis of a slump-stricken nation in the best-selling English Journey, to his popular wartime broadcasts which paved the way to 1945 and the welfare state, his post-war critique of 'Admass' and the Cold War (he was a co-founder of CND), and his continual engagement with the question of 'Englishness', Priestley addressed the key issues of the century from a radical standpoint in fiction, journalism and plays which appealed to a wide audience and made him one of the most successful writers of his day, in a career which spanned the 1920s and the 1980s. Priestley's England explores the cultural, literary and political history of twentieth-century Britain through the themes which preoccupied Priestley throughout his life: competing versions of Englishness; tradition, modernity, and the decline of industrial England; 'Americanisation', mass culture and 'Admass'; cultural values and 'broadbrow' culture; consumerism and the decay of the public sphere; the loss of spirituality and community in 'the nervous excitement, the frenzy, the underlying despair of our century'. It argues that Priestley has been unjustly neglected for too long: we have a great deal to learn both from this extraordinary, multi-faceted man, and from the English radical tradition he represented. This book will appeal to all those interested in the culture and politics of twentieth-century Britain, in the continuing debates over 'Englishness' to which Priestley made such a key contribution, and in the life and work of one of the most remarkable and popular writers of the past century.

      • Trusted Partner
        First World War
        July 2013

        Priestley’s England

        J. B. Priestley and English culture

        by John Baxendale

        Priestley's England is the first full-length academic study of J B Priestley - novelist, playwright, screen-writer, journalist and broadcaster, political activist, public intellectual and popular entertainer, one of the makers of twentieth-century Britain, and one of its sharpest critics. From his scathing analysis of a slump-stricken nation in the best-selling English Journey, to his popular wartime broadcasts which paved the way to 1945 and the welfare state, his post-war critique of 'Admass' and the Cold War (he was a co-founder of CND), and his continual engagement with the question of 'Englishness', Priestley addressed the key issues of the century from a radical standpoint in fiction, journalism and plays which appealed to a wide audience and made him one of the most successful writers of his day, in a career which spanned the 1920s and the 1980s. Priestley's England explores the cultural, literary and political history of twentieth-century Britain through the themes which preoccupied Priestley throughout his life: competing versions of Englishness; tradition, modernity, and the decline of industrial England; 'Americanisation', mass culture and 'Admass'; cultural values and 'broadbrow' culture; consumerism and the decay of the public sphere; the loss of spirituality and community in 'the nervous excitement, the frenzy, the underlying despair of our century'. It argues that Priestley has been unjustly neglected for too long: we have a great deal to learn both from this extraordinary, multi-faceted man, and from the English radical tradition he represented. This book will appeal to all those interested in the culture and politics of twentieth-century Britain, in the continuing debates over 'Englishness' to which Priestley made such a key contribution, and in the life and work of one of the most remarkable and popular writers of the past century.

      • Trusted Partner
        First World War
        July 2012

        Priestley’s England

        J. B. Priestley and English culture

        by John Baxendale

        Priestley's England is the first full-length academic study of J B Priestley - novelist, playwright, screen-writer, journalist and broadcaster, political activist, public intellectual and popular entertainer, one of the makers of twentieth-century Britain, and one of its sharpest critics. From his scathing analysis of a slump-stricken nation in the best-selling English Journey, to his popular wartime broadcasts which paved the way to 1945 and the welfare state, his post-war critique of 'Admass' and the Cold War (he was a co-founder of CND), and his continual engagement with the question of 'Englishness', Priestley addressed the key issues of the century from a radical standpoint in fiction, journalism and plays which appealed to a wide audience and made him one of the most successful writers of his day, in a career which spanned the 1920s and the 1980s. Priestley's England explores the cultural, literary and political history of twentieth-century Britain through the themes which preoccupied Priestley throughout his life: competing versions of Englishness; tradition, modernity, and the decline of industrial England; 'Americanisation', mass culture and 'Admass'; cultural values and 'broadbrow' culture; consumerism and the decay of the public sphere; the loss of spirituality and community in 'the nervous excitement, the frenzy, the underlying despair of our century'. It argues that Priestley has been unjustly neglected for too long: we have a great deal to learn both from this extraordinary, multi-faceted man, and from the English radical tradition he represented. This book will appeal to all those interested in the culture and politics of twentieth-century Britain, in the continuing debates over 'Englishness' to which Priestley made such a key contribution, and in the life and work of one of the most remarkable and popular writers of the past century.

      • Trusted Partner
        History of medicine
        July 2015

        Working in a world of hurt

        Trauma and resilience in the narratives of medical personnel in warzones

        by Carol Acton, Jane Potter

        Working in a world of hurt fills a significant gap in the studies of the psychological trauma wrought by war. It focuses not on soldiers, but on the men and women who fought to save them in casualty clearing stations, hospitals and prison camps. The writings by doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and other medical personnel reveal the spectrum of their responses that range from breakdown to resilience. Through a rich analysis of both published and unpublished personal from the First World War in the early twentieth century to Iraq in the early twenty-first, Acton and Potter put centre stage the letters, diaries, memoirs and weblogs that have chronicled physical and emotional suffering, many for the first time. Wide-ranging in scope, interdisciplinary in method, and written in a scholarly yet accessible style, Working in a world of hurt is essential reading for lecturers and students as well as the general reader.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2017

        Europe on the move

        Refugees in the era of the Great War

        by Peter Gatrell, Lyubov Zhvanko, Penny Summerfield

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2017

        Europe on the move

        Refugees in the era of the Great War

        by Peter Gatrell, Lyubov Zhvanko, Penny Summerfield

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2017

        British women of the Eastern Front

        War, writing and experience in Serbia and Russia, 1914–20

        by Angela Smith

        This book explores the experiences of a range of women from the early days of 1914, through the big events of the war on the Eastern Front. Their diaries, letters, memoirs and journalism are used to investigate the extraordinary role played by British women during the fall of Serbia, the Russian Revolution and the final push, and their role in reconstruction following the Armistice. These women, and their writings, are examined through the multiple lenses of gender, nationality, patriotism, imperialism and legacy, but the book also tells the stories of individuals, and will appeal across audiences to students, researchers and general readers. This is the first book to examine the war in the East through the eyes of British women and as such makes an important contribution to First World War Studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2017

        The American bomb in Britain

        US Air Forces' strategic presence, 1946–64

        by Ken Young

        This study tells the story of the strategic nuclear forces deployed to England by the United States from the late 1940s, and details the secret agreement made to launch atomic strikes against the USSR. Drawing on more than a decade's research in archives on both sides of the Atlantic, hitherto unknown aspects of Cold War history are revealed. The book deals with the United States Air Force's (USAF) relations with their British hosts as well as tensions between the American commands, with the continuous struggle to develop and safeguard the expanding base network and with the losing battle to provide the deployed bomber forces with an adequate air defence. This challenging analysis, based on massive archival sources, will provoke and stimulate Cold War historians and air power enthusiasts alike, and be read by those many veterans who served in the units of Strategic Air Command and the USAF in Europe, during that brief but dangerous period of nuclear history.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        'At Duty's Call'

        A study in obsolete patriotism

        by W. J. Reader

        The Victorian private solider was a despised figure. A working man had to be desperate indeed to take the Queen's shilling. Yet in the first sixteen months of the Great War two and a half million men from the UK and many more from the empire, flocked to the colours - without any form of legal compulsion. There had never been a volunteer army like it. What was in the air of England in the generation or so before 1914 to bring about such collective exultation? How did it come about that, in a society which - in oft-proclaimed contrast to Germany - rejected conscription and prided itself on having no taint of militarism, men could be induced to volunteer in such numbers? The nation's general state of mind, system of values and set of attitudes derived largely from the upper middle class, which had emerged and become dominant during the nineteenth century. The book examines the phenomenon of 1914 and the views held by people of that class, since it was under their leadership that the country went to war.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2017

        Children born of war in the twentieth century

        by Sabine Lee

        This book explores the life courses of children born of war in different twentieth-century conflicts, including the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Bosnian War, the Rwandan Genocide and the LRA conflict. It investigates both governmental and military policies vis-à-vis children born of war and their mothers, as well as family and local community attitudes, building a complex picture of the multi-layered challenges faced by many children born of war within their post-conflict receptor communities. Based on extensive archival research, the book also uses oral history and participatory research methods which allow the author to add the voices of the children born of war to historical analysis.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2017

        Children born of war in the twentieth century

        by Sabine Lee

        This book explores the life courses of children born of war in different twentieth-century conflicts, including the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Bosnian War, the Rwandan Genocide and the LRA conflict. It investigates both governmental and military policies vis-à-vis children born of war and their mothers, as well as family and local community attitudes, building a complex picture of the multi-layered challenges faced by many children born of war within their post-conflict receptor communities. Based on extensive archival research, the book also uses oral history and participatory research methods which allow the author to add the voices of the children born of war to historical analysis.

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