Book Club of War

  One of the many interesting discussions I have been involved in of late has been about the writing and recording of combat experiences and how reliable or not those accounts are. Some of the first books we all read on the wars is those of soldiers, sailors and airmen and their personal experiences, their involvement in war, what they saw and felt.   We get drawn in by the excitement, heroism, action, and outcomes. A lot of time we have read these in isolation without being able to share with others that have our interest and without understanding the wider context. In some ways that comes with age and experience. Social Media has enabled people from all over the world to come together and discuss all aspects of war and the question of “Reconstructing and Recording combat experiences in World War 1 and Second World War” keeps coming to the fore. As we understand more, we start to question the evidence in front of us. We start to understand how these accounts are written a...

  I have had a problem. I have struggled for a while to read or review any books. The war and atrocities in Ukraine have really had me asking questions of myself and why I have this interest in all things related to conflict. I have had to understand why I do what I do, why I read these books, why I undertake the research I do and what all that means. Its taken time for me to understand what it is. The conclusion I have come to and finally squared it away in my mind is that yes, I study war and conflict, but I do not celebrate them. War is bad on all levels from the loss and destruction it causes to the impact on countries and those that live each day wondering what happens next. I study it because I want to understand the whys and the how’s. I want to understand the past so I can understand the now and the future. War is driven by men with egos, men who stop caring about people but only about their ideology. There is so much more to war and conflict than death and destruct...