Reading and the First World War
Subtitle: Readers, Texts, Archives
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: Aug 05, 2015
Language: eng
Format: hardcover
Number of pages: 266
ISBN-13: 9781137302700
Description: What role did reading play in the lives of those who experienced the First World War? This volume demonstrates that reading was both the prime leisure occupation and the main means for transmitting information for combatants and civilians during the war. Ranging from ordinary soldiers to conscientious objectors and from to war artists to civilians in occupied Belgium, the readers uncovered in this volume read for a multitude of reasons. Letters and books sent from home could bring soldiers in touch with family members and memories of lives lived before the war. Newspapers and trench journals helped maintain morale in the trenches and communicated war news and propaganda to civilian audiences. Bringing together respected specialists and emerging scholars, 'Reading in the First World War' reveals the diversity of reading practices at the time and the central importance of reading in the experience of conflict, at the front and at home.
Notes: Source title: Reading and the First World War: Readers, Texts, Archives (New Directions in Book History)