1948

1948

Author: Uri Avnery

Publisher: Oneworld

Published: 2008-09

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13:

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"Joining the Israeli army at the outbreak of war, and later volunteering for the legendary commando unit, "Samson's Foxes," Uri Avnery took part in almost all the major battles on the Jerusalem and southern fronts. Writing from the battlefield, from the back of jeeps, in deserted villages and, at the very end, from a military hospital bed, Avnery captured the taste and texture of life on the front line: of adrenaline-fueled battles and day-to-day brutalities, as well as the bravery, camaraderie, and off-duty exploits of young men and women thrust into the horror and inhumanity of war."--BOOK JACKET.


The Soldiers' Tale

The Soldiers' Tale

Author: Samuel Hynes

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1998-04-01

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1101191724

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The Soldiers' Tale is the story of modern wars as told by the men who did the actual fighting. Hynes examines the journals, memoirs, and letters of men who fought in the two World Wars and in Vietnam, and also the wars fought against the weak and helpless in concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and bombed cities. Interweaving his own reflections on war with brilliantly chosen passages from soldiers' accounts, he offers vivid answers to the question we all ask of men who have fought: What was it like? In these powerful pages the experiences of modern war, which seem unimaginable to those who weren't there, become comprehensible and real. The wide range of writers examined includes both famous literary memoirists like Robert Graves, Tim O'Brien, and Elie Wiesel, and unknown soldiers who wrote only their war stories. Using these testimonies, Hynes considers each war in terms of its special circumstances and its effects on men who fought. His understanding of the psychology of warfare—and of each war's role in history—gives this study its intellectual authority; the voices of the men who were there, and wrote about what they saw and felt, give it its powerful dramatic impact.


A Soldier's Tale

A Soldier's Tale

Author: M. K. Joseph

Publisher:

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9781869508555

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Cruelty and mercy share the same human heart . . . Normandy, 1944. In a small village near Bayeux, a young soldier comes across an isolated farmhouse, where a woman waits alone. As they talk, three grim-faced Frenchmen arrive to take her away for 'questioning', telling him she betrayed their Resistance colleagues to the Gestapo, through her SS lover. the soldier is armed, and forces them to leave her - but they all know he will eventually have to move on, and the woman will be theirs. What follows has been described as both appalling and the finest love story - the grain of sand in which one can see all war. In 1976, one of New Zealand's finest novelists, the late M.K. Joseph first published this stunningly simple yet devastating novel, a powerful story of love and betrayal you will find very hard to forget.


Squaddie

Squaddie

Author: Steven McLaughlin

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-05-20

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1780572026

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From the harsh realities of basic training to post-war chaos in Iraq and knife-edge tension in Northern Ireland, Squaddie takes us to a place not advertised in army recruitment brochures. It exposes the grim reality of everyday soldiering for the 'grunts on the ground'. After the tragic death of his brother, and in the dark days following 9/11, McLaughlin felt compelled to fulfil his lifelong ambition to serve in the army. He followed his late brother into the elite Royal Green Jackets and passed the arduous Combat Infantryman's Course at the age of 31. Thereafter, McLaughlin found himself submerged in a world of casual violence. Squaddie is a snapshot of infantry soldiering in the twenty-first century. It takes us into the heart of an ancient institution that is struggling to retain its tough traditions in a rapidly changing world. All of the fears and anxieties that the modern soldier carries as his burden are laid bare, as well as the occasional joys and triumphs that can make him feel like he is doing the best job in the world. This is an account of army life by someone who has been there and done it.


The Steadfast Tin Soldier

The Steadfast Tin Soldier

Author: Hans Christian Andersen

Publisher: ABRAMS

Published: 2013-03-12

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13: 1613124988

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A beautifully illustrated version of the classic fairy tale about a tin soldier’s adventure and his love for a ballerina, retold with a twist. With her signature warmth and lyricism, Newbery winner Cynthia Rylant has crafted a new version of the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a tin soldier who falls in love with a ballerina. As in the original story, the tin soldier’s love for the beautiful ballerina is thwarted by a goblin. The tin soldier is separated from the other toys and washed down a sewer, where he encounters a rat and gets swallowed by a fish, but somehow, against all odds, he manages to end up back home only to be cast into the nursery fire. Rylant adds her own twist to the end of the tale, however, for in this version, the tin soldier and the ballerina are melded to each other, rather than melted, in the heat of the fire, so they’ll never be parted again. Rylant’s expert storytelling paired with Corace’s stunning illustrations create a beautiful, unforgettable tale of everlasting love. Praise for The Steadfast Tin Soldier “Gracefully written. . . . The book’s large format gives plenty of scope for Corace’s distinctive illustrations, precise ink drawings brightened with watercolor, gouache, and acrylic paints. Sometimes brilliantly colorful and sometimes more subdued, the scenes can be crowded with dozens of toys or other visual elements, but they show up well from a distance. The subtle depictions of the goblin and his shadow are particularly fine. A softened vision of the literary fairy tale.” —Booklist “Text and illustrations weave seamlessly to create an involving, fast-paced update of a much-loved tale. Rylant's retelling is abridged, yet sprightly, and Corace’s watercolor, gouache, acrylic, and pen-and-ink illustrations add nuance and whimsy to Andersen's original.” —School Library Journal


The Radical Soldier's Tale

The Radical Soldier's Tale

Author: Carolyn Steedman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1317266102

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First published in 1988, The Radical Soldier’s Tale is both an introduction to and a transcript of his ‘Memoirs’, written after his retirement in 1881. In this autobiography he presents his life as a soldier during the Sikh Wars, his life as a policeman, and the ideologies which divided people from each other in the societies he had known and read about. Carolyn Steedman introduces the ‘Memoirs’ by placing the document in its textual context, as well as the context of history and politics, and shows how it directs fascinating light on popular political thought in the mid-Victorian years. In her introduction she looks closely at the kind of narratives people have access to in different social circumstances and the stories they tell themselves to explain who they are. This book will be of particular interest to students of Victorian history and politics.


Refugee Tales

Refugee Tales

Author: Ali Smith

Publisher: Comma Press

Published: 2016-05-31

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1910974234

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Two unaccompanied children travel across the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat that has been designed to only make it halfway across… A 63-year-old man is woken one morning by border officers ‘acting on a tip-off’ and, despite having paid taxes for 28 years, is suddenly cast into the detention system with no obvious means of escape… An orphan whose entire life has been spent in slavery – first on a Ghanaian farm, then as a victim of trafficking – writes to the Home Office for help, only to be rewarded with a jail sentence and indefinite detention… These are not fictions. Nor are they testimonies from some distant, brutal past, but the frighteningly common experiences of Europe’s new underclass – its refugees. While those with ‘citizenship’ enjoy basic human rights (like the right not to be detained without charge for more than 14 days), people seeking asylum can be suspended for years in Kafka-esque uncertainty. Here, poets and novelists retell the stories of individuals who have direct experience of Britain’s policy of indefinite immigration detention. Presenting their accounts anonymously, as modern day counterparts to the pilgrims’ stories in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, this book offers rare, intimate glimpses into otherwise untold suffering.


Stravinsky's Histoire Du Soldat

Stravinsky's Histoire Du Soldat

Author: Igor Stravinsky

Publisher: A-R Editions, Inc.

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0895795795

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viii + 359 pp.Includes b/w reproductions of all Stravinsky's sketches for "Histoire du soldat"


Crossings

Crossings

Author: Jon Kerstetter

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1101904399

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A searing, beautifully told memoir by a Native American doctor on the trials of being a doctor-soldier in the Iraq War, and then, after suffering a stroke that left his life irrevocably changed, his struggles to overcome the new limits of his body, mind, and identity. Every juncture in Jon Kerstetter’s life has been marked by a crossing from one world into another: from civilian to doctor to soldier; between healing and waging war; and between compassion and hatred of the enemy. When an injury led to a stroke that ended his careers as a doctor and a soldier, he faced the most difficult crossing of all, a recovery that proved as shattering as war itself. Crossings is a memoir of an improbable, powerfully drawn life, one that began in poverty on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin but grew by force of will to encompass a remarkable medical practice. Trained as an emergency physician, Kerstetter’s thirst for intensity led him to volunteer in war-torn Rwanda, Kosovo, and Bosnia, and to join the Army National Guard. His three tours in the Iraq War marked the height of the American struggle there. The story of his work in theater, which involved everything from saving soldiers’ lives to organizing the joint U.S.–Iraqi forensics team tasked with identifying the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons, is a bracing, unprecedented evocation of a doctor’s life at war. But war was only the start of Kerstetter’s struggle. The stroke he suffered upon returning from Iraq led to serious cognitive and physical disabilities. His years-long recovery, impeded by near-unbearable pain and complicated by PTSD, meant overcoming the perceived limits of his body and mind and reimagining his own capacity for renewal and change. It led him not only to writing as a vocation but to a deeper understanding of how healing means accepting a new identity, and how that acceptance must be fought for with as much tenacity as any battlefield victory.