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National Service: A Generation in Uniform 1945-1963
Richard Vinen
€ 21.99
€ 16.67
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Description for National Service: A Generation in Uniform 1945-1963
Paperback. Winner of the Templer Medal and the Wolfson History Prize, this book attempt to get to grips with the reality of that extraordinary institution, which now seems as remote as the British Empire itself. Num Pages: 640 pages. BIC Classification: 1DBK; 3JJPG; 3JJPK; HBJD1; HBLW3; HBWS; JWT. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 132 x 200 x 34. Weight in Grams: 472.
Winner of the Templer Medal and the Wolfson History Prize
Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller
Richard Vinen's National Service is a serious - if often very entertaining - attempt to get to grips with the reality of that extraordinary institution, which now seems as remote as the British Empire itself. With great sympathy and curiosity, Vinen unpicks the myths of the two 'gap years', which all British men who came of age between 1945 and the early 1960s had to fill with National Service.
This book is fascinating to those who endured or even enjoyed their time in uniform, but also to anyone wishing to understand the unique nature of post-war Britain.
Product Details
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2015
Condition
New
Number of Pages
640
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780141399805
SKU
V9780141399805
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-19
About Richard Vinen
Richard Vinen is the author of the highly praised A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century, The Unfree French: Life under the Occupation (published by Penguin) and Thatcher's Britain. He is Professor of History at King's College London.
Reviews for National Service: A Generation in Uniform 1945-1963
Vinen's clever and careful book is surely the definitive history. The era of national service now seems like ancient history, but from the routines of the parade ground to the horrors of Korea, Vinen restores it to life with a searching eye for detail and impressive human sympathy
Dominic Sandbrook
Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Written with compassion and insight, Vinen's book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of postwar Britain
Tony Barber
Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR
National Service may prove to be the most original social history book of 2014. The book is bigger than its ostensible subject, embracing class, masculinity, sexuality, compliance, rebellion, combat atrocities, petty crime, notions of national identity, group solidarity, the fallibility of memory and what it means to be a man
Richard Davenport-Hines
Guardian
Vinen has given us the kind of book that every professional historian surely wants to write: not only with a mastery of its voluminous original sources but also a sensitivity to the rich human detail, by turns authoritative, thoughtful, poignant - and funny
Peter Clarke
Financial Times
I can't recall ever having read so unexpectedly fascinating a book...every single page has something of great interest on it
Nicholas Lezard
The Guardian
Dominic Sandbrook
Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Written with compassion and insight, Vinen's book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of postwar Britain
Tony Barber
Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR
National Service may prove to be the most original social history book of 2014. The book is bigger than its ostensible subject, embracing class, masculinity, sexuality, compliance, rebellion, combat atrocities, petty crime, notions of national identity, group solidarity, the fallibility of memory and what it means to be a man
Richard Davenport-Hines
Guardian
Vinen has given us the kind of book that every professional historian surely wants to write: not only with a mastery of its voluminous original sources but also a sensitivity to the rich human detail, by turns authoritative, thoughtful, poignant - and funny
Peter Clarke
Financial Times
I can't recall ever having read so unexpectedly fascinating a book...every single page has something of great interest on it
Nicholas Lezard
The Guardian