The Great War ended more than ninety years ago yet still haunts and fascinates us today. In The Soldier's War, Richard van Emden traces a history of the fighting month by month and year by year, using original diaries, letters and as-yet-unseen photographs taken by the soldiers themselves. We follow the British Tommy through devastating battles and trench warfare from the outbreak of war in 1914 to the armistice four years later, guided by Richard van Emden's sure explanations. This is a history of the war as seen from the trenches that is shockingly intimate, sometimes heartbreaking, often wryly amusing, but always compelling.

The public demand for stories about the Great War is insatiable, as shown by Richard Van Emden's own The Last Fighting Tommy (with Harry Patch) which has sold over 45,000 hardbacks and over 97,000 paperbacks (BookScan) Illustrated with over 75 never-seen-before battlefield photographs taken by the soldiers themselves at the front line Published for Father's Day 2009, the paperback is essential reading for all readers of military history. A Father's Day campaign across retailers and the press will ensure that this book is a natural gift choice during this period.

About the Author
Richard van Emden has interviewed over 270 veterans of the Great War and has written ten books on the Great War including The Trench, and The Last Fighting Tommy (both top ten bestsellers), Boy Soldiers of the Great War, and Prisoners of the Kaiser. He has also worked on more than a dozen television programmes on the Great War, including Prisoners of the Kaiser, Veterans, Britain's Last Tommies, and the award winning Roses of No Man's Land and Britain's Boy Soldiers.

Reviews
'Thousands of books have been written about the Great War, but perhaps none so vividly evocative as The Soldier's War an extraordinary homage to a lost generation' Daily Mail 'In The Soldier's War, Richard van Emden has toiled in archives and hunted down caches of letters to tell the story of the war chronologically through the eyes of the Tommies who fought it' The Times 'Not the least remarkable aspect of Van Emden's trawl through the memories of these survivors is that they are accompanied by around 100 unpublished photos Since original images from the war's sharp end are rarities, these pictures - blurred and fuzzy though many of them are - are themselves worth the price of the book' Literary Review 'Van Emden manages to establish in an immediate empathy with these ordinary men of Britain, thrown into such horrendous conditions. They hope, moan, laugh, grieve, despair and pray their way through the four years of the 'war to end all wars" Time Out



Book Information
ISBN 9780747598732
Author Richard van Emden
Format Paperback
Page Count 400
Imprint Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 26mm