Max Arthur specialiseert zich in ooggetuigenverslagen van historische gebeurtenissen en brengt een uniek perspectief mee dat is gevormd door zijn eerdere dienst bij de Royal Air Force en een carrière als acteur. Hij verzamelt nauwgezet persoonlijke getuigenissen, waardoor degenen die de geschiedenis uit de eerste hand hebben meegemaakt een stem krijgen. Zijn werk, vaak tot stand gekomen in nauwe samenwerking met instellingen zoals het Imperial War Museum, duikt in het collectieve geheugen van belangrijke conflicten. Via zijn aanpak creëert Arthur meeslepende en authentieke literaire portretten van cruciale historische momenten.
From the author of the bestselling Forgotten Voices of the Great War comes a final look at the last 21 living British veterans of the First World War. These interviews, conducted in 2004, will never be repeated, as the youngest was 106 years old, and most are now gone. These first-person accounts follow the young soldiers from their homes throughout Britain to the raging battles while in the service of the Royal Field Artillery, Black Watch, Royal Navy, and others. These combat experiences should never be forgotten.
"Compulsive reading." -Norman Tebbit, The Sunday Times (London) FORGOTTEN VOICES OF THE GREAT WAR is a touching, searing, and above all mesmerizing account of World War I, told in the voices of those who endured the tedium, heat, cold, pain, fear, and loss of the world's most brutal trench warfare to date. In 1972 the British Imperial War Museum set about the momentous task of tracing ordinary veterans of the First World War and interviewing them in detail about their experiences. The Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, which includes recorded firsthand accounts of the experiences of American, British, Canadian, French, and German soldiers, as well as soldiers from the British Commonwealth, has since grown to be the most important collection of its kind in the world. The archive's recordings provide a vivid and compelling account of day-to-day life during one of the most harrowing periods of modern times. These recordings, many of which have remained unheard for decades, contain the forgotten voices of a generation no longer with us. Only a small fraction of the material has been used by historians. Now, thirty years later, after hundreds of hours in the archive and unlimited access to the complete WWI audiotapes, acclaimed author Max Arthur and his team of researchers have created this remarkable landmark history of the Great War-told in the words of the ordinary men and women who experienced it in the raw.
