1915 - The Death of Innocence

Book Description

By Christmas 1914, the wild wave of enthusiasm that had sent men flocking to join up a few months earlier began to tail off, and though the original British Expeditionary Force had suffered 90 percent casualties, most people, particularly the soldiers themselves, still believed that 1915 would see the breaking of the deadlock. But their hopes were shattered on the bloody battlefields of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Loos, and far away on the shores of Gallipoli.

Lyn Macdonald's story of 1915 is stark, brutal, frank, sometimes painfully funny, always human. Never before has any writer collected so many firsthand accounts of the experiences of ordinary soldiers, through diaries, letters, and interviews with survivors--and it is the dogged heroism and sardonic humor of the soldiers that shine through the pages of this epic narrative. 1915 is a uniquely compelling blend of military history and poignant memories of the fighters who survived the ordeal.

Customer Reviews:

1915 A classic account of the true horrors of war.......2002-10-17

Lyn MacDonald's book captures the true and complete horror of warfare in this book. Rich in detail and telling accounts by the men that fought in the savage and bloody battles in 1915. A must read for someone trying to understand the daily misery and destruction of a generation of brave men. By far, my favorite book in the series, but not to discount the others, each of which is a classic and should be read in sequence to grasp the fullness of the story of The Great War.

The BEF in 1915.......2002-08-01

First and foremost, this book is an account of the experiences of British soldiers on the Western Front in 1915. It's not, and does not purport to be, a general history of 1915 - the focus is firmly on the British. Having said that, Lyn Macdonald does give some attention to events on the "Home Front" but only in so far as they affected directly the lives of the soldiers. She also draws attention to the fact that the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France was in fact a multi-national affair - for example, there were (among others) Indian and Canadian troops in the BEF - indeed the latter, among with French Colonial troops, were the first to be subjected to German gas attacks.

The main battles covered are Neuve Chapelle, Ypres and Loos, but there are chapters on the Gallipoli campaign. Although the Gallipoli chapters are well-written, they are subsidiary to the descriptions of the Western Front, and therefore might disappoint readers who are looking for a more detailed examination of that campaign.

The success of Lyn Macdonald's method of writing about World War One is her skilful use of first-hand accounts: the ordinary soldiers and officers are "allowed" to relate their experiences to the reader, with Macdonald linking those accounts with her own narrative - acting as a guide, as it were. Therefore the reader is given the opportunity to get closer to an real appreciation of what it must have been like (although given the horrors the troops went through this can only, thank goodness, still be an very distant approximation).

There were things in my edition which were irritating: several sloppy grammatical and spelling errors; and some unfortunate, unsubstantiated assertions, such as "... the Guards [were] the best of all the soldiers in an army that ws generally acknowledged to be the best army in the world." Although I was full of admiration of the British (and other) soldiers after reading the book, I thought that trotting out a sentence like that and asking people to take it as a self-evident truth was overdoing it.

Having said that, this is still a fine, and at times, moving book.

Mysteriously compels you to read it again and again.......2002-04-11

The other reviewers have spoken to Lyn MacDonalds style and areas of expertise. My experience with this book is that compells me to read it again and again. I pick it up and start reading it in mid chapter, and it's always interesting despite the number of times I have read it. Every page has completely engrossing narrative, so it hooks me any time I pick it up. The account of miners tunnelling underneath enemy lines is particularly memorable.

I'm definitely going to pick up everything else she has written.

Death of innocence sums it up nicely.......2002-03-14

Some people may criticise this book for not including the French. But to do that, it would have to come in several volumes. World War One is just too vast to include everyone from both sides in one volume. What is covered very well is the experiences of those at the "sharp end". Generals and maps are very well for those who want to follow the overall view, but that does not cover the misery of the rifleman and company officers who did not have the luxury of comfortable billets and lack of danger enjoyed by the higher ranks. Drawing a line on a piece of paper is a far cry from having to man that line. Ordering an attack is easy for those who don't have to do the attacking and have no idea of the conditions of the soldier who has to advance through mud and barbed wire. I am reminded of a staff officer who, on seeing the actual front line after the battle of the Somme said "My God, did we send men to fight in that!"

A Very Small Part of the Story of 1915 on the Western Front.......2001-06-16

Lyn MacDonald's book on 1915 mirrors her patented participant-oriented storytelling evidenced in "Somme" and "They Called it Passchendaele..." However, while the aforementioned titles mostly succeed because of the British-heavy focus of the battles, "1915: The Death of Innocence" cannot begin to tell the whole story of 1915. As a result, it does not even try.

Obviously, MacDonald, as a British woman and patriot, is only concerned with the British perspective of 1915. The trouble with that is that the French Army held 85% of the Western Front in 1915; the British number of 15% was reached only at the end of the year. And yet, for hundreds of pages, small engagements (especially in relation to the tremendous French campaigns further south on the front) are given mind-numbing detail while the main pillar of the Allied alliance, at least until the Spring of 1917, is all but ignored.

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To fully grasp Marx's theory of the labor movement, Lapides supplies a deeper insight into the economic analysis underlying it. This book presents Marx's theory of wages and wage labor, previously scattered throughout his writings, in its entirety for the first time. The author places the theory in its historical context, locating the sources of Marx's wage theory, its intellectual antecedents, and the roots of later controversies, but the primary focus of the work is the actual development of Marx's theory in the words in which he expressed it. In order to reveal the true nature and rich texture of Marx's thought, the author has assembled Marx's own formulations, scattered throughout his numerous works and buried beneath mountains of commentary and criticism. The book provides a faithful record of the complete evolutionary progress of Marx's theory.

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This digital document is an article from Labour/Le Travail, published by Canadian Committee on Labour History on March 22, 1999. The length of the article is 1842 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Marx's wage theory in historical perspective: its origins, development, and interpretation.
Publication: Labour/Le Travail (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1999
Publisher: Canadian Committee on Labour History
Issue: 43 Page: 253-6

Article Type: Book Review

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