Lyn Macdonald is een gevierde historicus die gespecialiseerd is in de Eerste Wereldoorlog, bekend om haar diep menselijke benadering van het conflict. Haar verhalen duiken in de persoonlijke ervaringen van soldaten en de uitdagingen waarmee medische teams werden geconfronteerd, waardoor de diepgaande impact van cruciale veldslagen tot leven komt. Door middel van nauwgezet onderzoek en suggestieve proza vangt ze de essentie van een generatie die onuitwisbaar door oorlog werd getekend. Macdonalds werk biedt lezers een intiem begrip van de tragedie, veerkracht en blijvende erfenis van de Grote Oorlog.
Uses personal accounts and illustrations to cover many aspects of World War I - from the departure of the Old Contemptibles to fight the Kaiser in 1914 to the bloody fields of Flanders. This book touches on subjects as diverse as propaganda, fear, morale, bravery, bawdiness and frivolity.
Over two decades' research puts Lyn Macdonald among the greatest popular chroniclers of the First World War. In 1915: The Death of Innocence, from the poignant memories of participants, she has once again created an unforgettable slice of military history. By the end of 1914, the battered British forces were bogged down, yet hopeful that promised reinforcements and spring weather would soon lead to a victorious breakthrough. A year later, after appalling losses at Aubers Ridge, Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres and faraway Gallipoli, fighting seemed set to go on for ever. Drawing on extensive interviews, letters and diaries, this book brilliantly evokes the soldiers' dogged heroism, sardonic humour and terrible loss of innocence through 'a year of cobbling together, of frustration, of indecision'. 'It is rare to find a history of the First World War which manages to convey the front-line soldiers' experiences and to describe what it was that enabled those who survived to get through it. Lyn Macdonald has done just that' Sunday Times Over the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a popular reputation as an author and historian of the First World War. Her books are based on the accounts of eyewitnesses and survivors, told in their own words, and cast a unique light on the First World War. Most are published by Penguin.
This is an account of the first few months of the Great War, from the build-up of the fighting to the first Battle of Ypres, written by the author of "Somme", "They called it Passchendaele" and "The Roses of No Man's Land".