Download or read book Reconstructing Women s Wartime Lives written by Penny Summerfield and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effects of World War II on women's sense of themselves forms the basis of this exploration of the interaction between cultural representations of men and women in World War II, and women's own narratives of their wartime lives.

Download or read book Music Politics and Violence written by Susan Fast and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music and violence have been linked since antiquity in ritual, myth, and art. Considered together they raise fundamental questions about creativity, discourse, and music's role in society. The essays in this collection investigate a wealth of issues surrounding music and violence—issues that cross political boundaries, time periods, and media—and provide cross-cultural case studies of musical practices ranging from large-scale events to regionally specific histories. Following the editors' substantive introduction, which lays the groundwork for conceptualizing new ways of thinking about music as it relates to violence, three broad themes are followed: the first set of essays examines how music participates in both overt and covert forms of violence; the second section explores violence and reconciliation; and the third addresses healing, post-memorials, and memory. Music, Politics, and Violence affords space to look at music as an active agent rather than as a passive art, and to explore how music and violence are closely—and often uncomfortably—entwined. CONTRIBUTORS include Nicholas Attfield, Catherine Baker, Christina Baade, J. Martin Daughtry, James Deaville, David A. McDonald, Kevin C. Miller, Jonathan Ritter, Victor A. Vicente, and Amy Lynn Wlodarski.

Download or read book Wartime Fashion written by Geraldine Howell and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive analysis of Second World War dress practice and appearance, this study places dress at the forefront of a complex series of cultural chain reactions. As lives were changed by the conditions of war, dress continued to reflect important visual narratives regarding class, gender and taste that would impact significantly on public consciousness of equality, fairness and morale. Using new archival and primary source evidence, Wartime Fashion clarifies how and why clothing was rationed, and repositions style and design during the war in relation to past expectations and ideas about clothes and fabrics. The book explores the impact of war on the dress and appearance of civilian women of all classes in the context of changing social and economic infrastructures created by the national emergency. The varied research elements combined in this book form a rounded and definitive account of the dress history of British women during the Second World War. This is essential reading for anyone with an active interest in the field, whether personal or professional.

Download or read book A Game of Birds and Wolves written by Simon Parkin and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As heard on the New Yorker Radio Hour: The triumphant and "engaging history" (The New Yorker) of the young women who devised a winning strategy that defeated Nazi U-boats and delivered a decisive victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. By 1941, Winston Churchill had come to believe that the outcome of World War II rested on the battle for the Atlantic. A grand strategy game was devised by Captain Gilbert Roberts and a group of ten Wrens (members of the Women's Royal Naval Service) assigned to his team in an attempt to reveal the tactics behind the vicious success of the German U-boats. Played on a linoleum floor divided into painted squares, it required model ships to be moved across a make-believe ocean in a manner reminiscent of the childhood game, Battleship. Through play, the designers developed "Operation Raspberry," a counter-maneuver that helped turn the tide of World War II. Combining vibrant novelistic storytelling with extensive research, interviews, and previously unpublished accounts, Simon Parkin describes for the first time the role that women played in developing the Allied strategy that, in the words of one admiral, "contributed in no small measure to the final defeat of Germany." Rich with unforgettable cinematic detail and larger-than-life characters, A Game of Birds and Wolves is a heart-wrenching tale of ingenuity, dedication, perseverance, and love, bringing to life the imagination and sacrifice required to defeat the Nazis at sea.

Download or read book We Built Up Our Lives written by Maxine S. Seller and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-08-30 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fearing an imminent Nazi invasion, the British government interned 28,000 men and women of enemy nationality living in Britain in the spring of 1940. Most were Jewish refugees who, having fled Nazi persecution, were appalled to find themselves imprisoned as potential Nazi spies. Using oral histories, unpublished letters and memoirs, artifacts and newspapers from the camps, and government documents, We Built Up Our Lives tells the compelling story of sixty-three of these internees. It is a seldom-told part of the history of World War II and the Holocaust and a classic tale of human courage and resilience. We Built Up Our Lives describes the survival mechanisms relied upon by the Jewish refugees. Although the internees, imprisoned in Britain, the Isle of Man, Canada, and Australia, were adequately housed and fed and rarely mistreated, they were cut off from family, friends, school, and work--everything that had given meaning to their lives. Resisting boredom, anger, and despair, the internees made the best of a bad situation by creating education, culture, and community within the camps. Before and after as well as during the internment--in Nazi Germany and in Britain--educational resources and social networks were essential to the refugees' efforts to build up their lives. Equally important were personal qualities of courage, ingenuity, assertiveness, and resilience.

Download or read book History on Television written by Ann Gray and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years non-fiction history programmes have flourished on television. This interdisciplinary study of history programming identifies and examines different genres employed by producers and tracks their commissioning, production, marketing and distribution histories. With comparative references to other European nations and North America, the authors focus on British history programming over the last two decades and analyse the relationship between the academy and media professionals. They outline and discuss often-competing discourses about how to ‘do’ history and the underlying assumptions about who watches history programmes. History on Television considers recent changes in the media landscape, which have affected to a great degree how history in general, and whose history in particular, appears onscreen. Through a number of case studies, using material from interviews by the authors with academic and media professionals, the role of the ‘professional’ historian and that of media professionals – commissioning editors and producer/directors - as mediators of historical material and interpretations is analysed, and the ways in which the ‘logics of television’ shape historical output are outlined and discussed. Building on their analysis, Ann Gray and Erin Bell ask if history on television fulfils its potential to be a form of public history through offering, as it does, a range of interpretations of the past to and originating from or including those not based in the academy. Through consideration of the representation, or absence, of the diversity of British identity – gender, ethnicity and race, social status and regional identities – the authors substantially extend the scope of existing scholarship into history on television History on Television will be essential reading for all those interested in the complex processes involved in the representation of history on television.

Download or read book Women of Intelligence written by Christine Halsall and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ornate Victorian manor sat in picturesque surroundings overlooking the River Thames at Medmenham, Buckinghamshire. Perhaps not the first place that springs to mind when considering the top-secret photographic interpretation that helped secure an Allied victory in the Second World War, but this was the headquarters of the Allied Central Interpretation Unit. It was here that air photography from all over enemy-occupied Europe was pored over by photographic interpreters, who sought out intricate details of enemy activity which then influenced virtually every Allied operation of the war. These quick-minded men and women were the ones to find out where the infamous German V-weapons were being constructed, were the first to see the results of the Dambusters’ raid and were sworn to utmost secrecy on everything they viewed. Women made up half of this work force and were, unusually, treated as equals with their male counterparts: the best person for the job, regardless of gender. Here the women of Medmenham, the ‘Women of Intelligence’ from Churchill’s daughter to girls escaping home for the first time, tell the story of their wartime life and work – in their own words.

Download or read book Half the battle written by Robert Mackay and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-19 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. How well did civilian morale stand up to the pressures of total war and what factors were important to it? This book rejects contentions that civilian morale fell a long way short of the favourable picture presented at the time and in hundreds of books and films ever since. While acknowledging that some negative attitudes and behaviour existed—panic and defeatism, ration-cheating and black-marketeering—it argues that these involved a very small minority of the population. In fact, most people behaved well, and this should be the real measure of civilian morale, rather than the failing of the few who behaved badly. The book shows that although before the war, the official prognosis was pessimistic, measures to bolster morale were taken nevertheless, in particular with regard to protection against air raids. An examination of indicative factors concludes that moral fluctuated but was in the main good, right to the end of the war. In examining this phenomenon, due credit is accorded to government policies for the maintenance of morale, but special emphasis is given to the ‘invisible chain’ of patriotic feeling that held the nation together during its time of trial.

Download or read book Mother Country written by Stephen Bourne and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2010-08-10 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Very little attention has been given to black British and West African and Caribbean citizens who lived and worked on the ‘front line’ during the Second World War. Yet black people were under fire in cities like Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, London and Manchester, and many volunteered as civilian defence workers, such as air-raid wardens, firefighters, stretcher-bearers, first-aid workers and mobile canteen personnel. Many helped unite people when their communities faced devastation. Black children were evacuated and black entertainers risked death when they took to the stage during air raids. Despite some evidence of racism, black people contributed to the war effort where they could. The colonies also played an important role in the war effort: support came from places as far away as Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana and Nigeria. Mother Country tells the story of some of the forgotten Britons whose contribution to the war effort has been overlooked until now.

Download or read book Under Fire written by Stephen Bourne and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War all British citizens were called upon to do their part for their country. Despite facing the discriminatory 'colour bar', many black civilians were determined to contribute to the war effort where they could, volunteering as air-raid wardens, fire-fighters, stretcher-bearers and first-aiders. Meanwhile, black servicemen and women, many of them volunteers from places as far away as Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana and Nigeria, risked their lives fighting for the Mother Country in the air, at sea and on land. In Under Fire, Stephen Bourne draws on first-hand testimonies to tell the whole story of Britain's black community during the Second World War, shedding light on a wealth of experiences from evacuees to entertainers, government officials, prisoners of war and community leaders. Among those remembered are men and women whose stories have only recently come to light, making Under Fire the definitive account of the bravery and sacrifices of black Britons in wartime.

Download or read book Theirs Not To Reason Why written by Graham Winton and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-06-19 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nominated for the Royal Historical Society Whitfield Book Prize 2013 Nominated for the NYMAS Arthur Goodzeit Book Award 2013 Nominated for the SAHR Templer Medal 2013 This book provides the first comprehensive study of the British Army’s horse services between 1875-1925, including the use of horses in the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer and the 1914-18 wars. There is a particular focus on the military procurement of horses in relation to the domestic horse breeding industry, foreign supply in times of war, the debate about mechanization versus the horse and an integrated military transport system. During the 1899-1902 war the recently created Army Veterinary and Remount Departments and Horse Registration Scheme were severely tested and found wanting. Following the appalling suffering and loss of horses during this War, the period 1902 to 1914 was critical for the development of the horse services. The crucial elements in effectively horsing the Army were recognized - supply, care, and organization. The Army depended on the creation of a rapid and effective horse mobilization scheme and the ability to sustain expansion in the field. The civilian horse market was central to the supply of military horses in peace and war, and by obtaining reliable information on the number and type of horses available to them, the Army could guarantee a regular supply. There was also a need to learn lessons from the 1899-1902 war for the planning and expansion of auxiliary services, for example blacksmiths, saddlers, remount depots and veterinary hospitals. On the outbreak of war in 1914 the Army had an organized reserve and mobilization scheme; a completely integrated transport system using horses, mechanized vehicles and rail networks. As the war progressed there were serious questions about the continuing supply of horses from both home and world markets, shortages of transport for moving them from the country of purchase and the growing submarine menace. Developments by 1919 in mechanical vehicles were acknowledged by many as signaling the end of the military reliance upon the horse, even though it remained the main source of motive power, and cavalry the main arm of exploitation. Many lessons from the 1899-1902 War had been learnt, shown in the improved performance of the horse services during 1914-18. The health of animals was maintained at a higher standard than in any former war and remounts were supplied to all theaters of war and to armies of allied nations. At the end of hostilities nearly eight million animals had to be quickly disposed of, as humanely as possible, to bring the Army back to its peacetime requirements

Download or read book Nights Out written by Judith Walkowitz and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London's Soho district underwent a spectacular transformation between the late Victorian era and the end of the Second World War: its fin-de-siècle buildings and dark streets infamous for sex, crime, political disloyalty, and ethnic diversity became a center of culinary and cultural tourism servicing patrons of nearby shops and theaters. Indulgences for the privileged and the upwardly mobile edged a dangerous, transgressive space imagined to be "outside" the nation. Treating Soho as exceptional, but also representative of London's urban transformation, Judith Walkowitz shows how the area's foreignness, liminality, and porousness were key to the explosion of culture and development of modernity in the first half of the twentieth century. She draws on a vast and unusual range of sources to stitch together a rich patchwork quilt of vivid stories and unforgettable characters, revealing how Soho became a showcase for a new cosmopolitan identity.

Download or read book Cultural Sniping written by Jo Spence and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jo Spence was one of Britain's pioneering photographers. This book is the first to reflect her unique contribution to photography and photographic theory.

Download or read book Women in the British Army written by Lucy Noakes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-18 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating, timely and engaging study, Lucy Noakes examines women's role in the army and female military organizations during the First and Second World Wars, during peacetime, in the interwar era and in the post-war period. Providing a unique examination of women’s struggle for acceptance by the British army, Noakes argues that women in uniform during the first half of the twentieth century challenged traditional notions of gender and threatened to destabilise clear-cut notions of identity by unsettling the masculine territory of warfare. Noakes also examines the tensions that arose as the army attempted to reconcile its need for female labour with their desire to ensure that the military remained a male preserve. Drawing on a range of archival sources, including previously unpublished letters and diaries, official documents, newspapers and magazines, Women in the British Army uncovers the gendered discourses of the army to reveal that it was a key site in the formation of male and female identities.

Download or read book The Masks of Mary Renault written by Caroline Zilboorg and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born Eileen Mary Challans in London in 1905, Mary Renault wrote six successful contemporary novels before turning to the historical fiction about ancient Greece for which she is best known. While Renault's novels are still highly regarded, her life and work have never been completely examined. Caroline Zilboorg seeks to remedy this in The Masks of Mary Renault by exploring Renault's identity as a gifted writer and a sexual woman in a society in which neither of these identities was clear or easy. Although Renault's life was anything but ordinary, this fact has often been obscured by her writing. The daughter of a doctor, she grew up comfortably and attended a boarding school in Bristol. She received a degree in English from St. Hugh's College in Oxford in 1928, but she chose not to pursue an academic career. Instead, she decided to attend the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, where she trained to be a nurse. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she was assigned to the Winford Emergency Hospital in Bristol and briefly worked with Dunkirk evacuees. She went on to work in the Radcliffe Infirmary's brain surgery ward and was there until 1945. It was during her nurse's training that Renault met Julie Mullard, who became her lifelong companion. This important lesbian relationship both resolved and posed many problems for Renault, not the least of which was how she was to write about issues at once intensely personal and socially challenging. In 1939, Renault published her first novel under a pseudonym in order to mask her identity. It was a time when she was struggling not only with her vocation (nursing and writing), but also with her sexual identity in the social and moral context of English life during the war. In 1948, Renault left England with Mullard for South Africa and never returned. It was in South Africa that she made the shift from her early contemporary novels of manners to the mature historical novels of Hellenic life. The classical settings allowed Renault to mask material too explosive to deal with directly while simultaneously giving her an "academic" freedom to write about subjects vital to her—among them war, peace, career, women's roles, female and male homosexuality, and bisexuality. Renault's reception complicates an understanding of her achievement, for she has a special status within the academic community, where she is both widely read and little written about. Her interest in sexuality and specifically in homosexuality and bisexuality, in fluid gender roles and identities, warrants a rereading and reevaluation of her work. Eloquently written and extensively researched, The Masks of Mary Renault will be of special value to anyone interested in women's studies or English literature.

Download or read book FotoTerapia written by Judy Weiser and published by FrancoAngeli. This book was released on 2014-02-14T00:00:00+01:00 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1250.224

Download or read book Sexed written by Susanna Rustin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2024-06-12 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Susanna Rustin's Sexed is a radical retelling of the story of British feminism. Starting in the revolutionary 1790s and ending in the present day, she introduces the 1830s radicals who demanded “LIBERTY FOR EVER!”, Victorian petitioners who expected to be dead before women won the vote, and rival camps of suffragists who embraced and rejected violence. She considers the contributions of the first female MPs, as well as activists including the Greenham peace protesters and the black and Asian women’s groups of the 1970s and 1980s. Her goal? To show how successive generations have fiercely contested what it means to be a woman, and why this matters. Biology on its own is not destiny. But this book argues that differences between male and female bodies have always been feminist issues. While gender is a useful concept, women cannot be supported by a politics that forgets that they, like men, are sexed.