Take Advantage Of The Beauty And The Sorrow: An Intimate History Of The First World War Illustrated By Peter Englund Displayed As Print

makes a wonderful job of showing all sides of the war, The negative, the positive, the optimism in face of great odds, and the despair, The breadth of the characters makes it hard to understand how their views evolve over the duration of the war, but Englund does what he can to help out.
Englund

treats us to a masterful perspectival account of WW I, The narrative takes the form of a chronologically arranged set of diary entries fromdifferent people who experienced the war, whether as soldiers, politicians, mothers, children, nurses etc.
Englund offers an account that is thus nonreductive and that avoids cliches and moralizing, There is a kind of sleight of hand in the way Englund summarizes diary entries on the way toward quoting parts of them, This has a tendency to masque Englund's narration since selection, as is will known in historiography, is always valueladen, History is as much the history we tell as what happened and some would argue history is ever only the history we chose, Still, Englund honours an irreducible event by asking us to pause and see events unfold through the eyes of those the diaries represent,

This is not a patriot's history, Nor is it an objector's one, It is an account that asks us to take time to ponder a conflict whose aftershocks we still experience in our contemporary global order, It asks us to look down the well of history and see there an entire generation ofyear olds wiped out in four years, a conflict so gruesome and so massive that its conclusion in, as the term "armistice" implies, did not spell the end of the global conflict, only a hiatus while everyone waited for more people to be born, to grow up, and to fight.


Anyone who has a romantic view of war should read this book: what would it mean to drown in mud, to use cadavers or bits of them as barricades to hide behind to avoid being gunned down by machine guns, to starve to death at home to support a war no one believed in any more, to fall prey to insane generals and maniacal rulers Englund does not answer these questions for us, he shows rather than tells, and this is what makes this such a masterful account.
He does not wrap himself in the flag, nor does he put daisies in the barrels of guns, He honours history by asking us to take possession of it in these accounts of people whose lives were made and unmade in a terrible conflict, This is a great book, Der schwedischen Historiker Peter Englund nähert sich in diesem Buch dem, Weltkrieg auf ungewöhnliche Art: Anhand von Selbstzeugnissen schildert erEinzelschicksale, die viele Aspekte des Krieges widerspiegeln auch und besonders solche, die sonst eher wenig im Fokus stehen.


Natürlich nimmt der Kampf in den Schützengräben an der Westfront richtigerweise einen wichtigen Platz ein, doch genauso verleiht Englund einer australischen Krankenwagenfahrerin im Dienste der serbischen Armee eine Stimme, einem italienischen Gebirgsjäger, einem ungarischen Kavalleristen, einer englischen Krankenschwester in Russland sowie dem USMilitärchirurgen Harvey Cushing, der der Bekannteste unter denausgewählten Personen sein dürfte.
Es kommen aber auch Menschen zu Wort, die den Krieg aus anderer, ziviler Perspektive erlebten, wie eine deutsche Schülerin oder ein französischer Beamter,

Dabei geht er chronologisch zu Werke und schildert jeweils kurze Episoden aus Sicht der Einzelpersonen, Das geht sehr unter die Haut, vor allem, wenn man weiß, dass nicht alleMenschen das Ende des Krieges erleben werden, Die vielen Facetten der Gewalt und Grausamkeit erschüttern, doch auch die Haltung in der Heimat erschreckt in ihrem rigiden Nationalismus auf allen Seiten und den krassen Sprachregelungen so war es verpönt und mancherorts gar verboten, das Wort "Frieden" in den Mund zu nehmen.
Ein Patriot hatte vom "Sieg" zu reden,

Das Buch liest sich fast romanhaft mitreißend und gleichzeitig erschreckend ist es eine deutliche Mahnung, wie schnell es auf einer Welle der nationalen Meinung zur Unterstützung für einen Krieg kommen kann.
Darüber hinaus öffnet es eindrucksvoll die Augen für die vielen verschiedenen Schauplätze, die selbst am Thema Interessierten womöglich gar nicht alle bewusst waren.
Es war tatsächlich ein WeltKrieg,

Ergänzt wird der Fließtext durch zahlreiche Fotos, die die "Protagonisten" zeigen und dadurch zusätzliche Nähe schaffen, und durch viele Verweise auf den umfangreichen Anhang hier hätte ich mir gewünscht, man hätte mit Fußnoten gearbeitet, um ständiges Hin und Herblättern zu vermeiden.
Four devastating years told by twenty eyewitnesses showing not just what the First World War was, but what it was like to live through

There are many books on the First World War, but awardwinning and bestselling historian Peter Englund takes a daring and stunning new approach.
Describing the experiences of twenty ordinary people from around the world, all now unknown, he explores the everyday aspects of war: not only the tragedy and horror, but also the absurdity, monotony and even beauty.
Two of these twenty will perish, two will become prisoners of war, two will become celebrated heroes and two others end up as physical wrecks, One of them goes mad, another will never hear a shot fired,

Following soldiers and sailors, nurses and government workers, from Britain, Russia, Germany, Australia and South America and in theatres of war often neglected by major histories on the period Englund reconstructs their feelings, impressions, experiences and moods.
This is a piece of antihistory: it brings this epochmaking event back to its smallest component, the individual, A través de los recuerdos personales de varios protagonistas de la contienda unos en el frente, otros en casa el narrador construye una visión del avance de la guerra en la que el entusiasmo patriota va dejando paso al miedo y al hastío.
Interesante porque la narración en primera persona se basa en los diarios y cartas de los protagonistas, que cubren un amplio espectro de la población que sufrió la guerra, de manera que son los detalles cotidianos que escapan a los grandes libros de historia los que ganan el interés del lector.

No sirve como guía de la guerra, son demasiados frentes y escenarios para un lector que no conozca la cronogía de la contienda, pero sirve para dar color a quién ya tenga una idea del desarrollo básico de las campañas.
After "Birdsong" I wanted to read more about World War I, but whereas that novel had been solely about the western front, this history described every aspect of the war.
I especially enjoyed the sections on East Africa and Mesopotamia, as I had very little prior knowledge about the fighting there,

The book also uses an unusual and highly effective format basically, the author follows twenty individuals using their diaries, letters, and other sources, and as the years march from, we read small vignettes of what each of them is experiencing in their daily life.
What makes this book so unique is that the cast of characters includes both men and women ranging in age from about, who come from all over: Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Russia, Venezuela, Australia, the U.
S. , Italy, and more. Some of these people are civilians, some are soldiers, and some are medics, but they are all changed irrevocably by the war,

I'll admit I expected it to be a bit of a slog, but it moved surprisingly quickly, due in part to Englund's decision to write most of the text himself and only use direct quotes where they made a moment more vivid.
This editing kept the structure flowing smoothly, rather than getting hung up on minor details in the primary documents, like some other historical works I've read,

A fascinating book overall and highly recommended!

I approached this book with skepticism because it attempts to capture something of the essence of World War I through the individual experiences ofdifferent people.
Trying to weaveseparate stories into a cohesive narrative would be a challenge for the most gifted writer/historian, But I think Peter Englund generally succeeds, Each of the stories is moving in its own way, and by focusing his attention on the lives of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary time he vividly captures the reality of World War I in a way that a more conventional history could not.


My only quibble is that I found myself constantly flipping back to the list of individuals at the beginning of the book to remind myself who they were.
With a less gifted writer I would have given up on the book early because of something like this, But Englund did such a commendable job narrating their stories he sustained my interest despite the challenge of keeping his subjects straight in my mind,

Peter Englund's writing is strong, intelligent and vivid, And he taught me some things about World War I that I did not know, I think anyone with an interest in World War I would find this an engaging read, Parafraseando al autor, del cómo y no del qué ni del por qué,

Género. Historia en formato no convencional,

Lo que nos cuenta, Relato de las vivencias cotidianas de veinte personas y un fragmento de la obra de otro individuo, al final, a modo de epílogo de diferentes condiciones, realidades y destinos durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, basado en hechos reales documentados a través de diarios, cartas, fotografías, etc

Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers Visite:

sitelink blogspot. com/
Afterpages you feel a little as though you've lived through it all yourself, but that's part of this The Beauty and the Sorrow's appeal because as you begin to grow weary about two thirds of the way through, you gain an amazing sense of the drudgery and fatigue of five years of war.
The book is skillfully pieced together from the letters and diaries of several different people, combatant and civilian from every corner of the conflict, and their stories are told chronologically and laced together day by day.
It's wonderful to get such a broad overview of the war on such an intimate scale,
Some of the stories are extraordinary, especially that of Rafael De Nogales, a Venuezelan 'adventurer' who decides he has to be involved in the war at all costs and offers his services to several of the Allied armies all of whom turn him down, he then tries the Germans, who also turn him down and then finally, he is accepted by the Ottoman Cavalry.
Whilst serving with the Ottomans he is a witness to the Armenian genocide, his observations are truly harrowing and they make you aware of just how badly served the Armenians have been by history.
Чудова книга що краще розкриває Велику війну. І проводить сотні паралелей з сучасною війною.

Яку втім слід читати в оригіналі. Фоліо Це найменш якісний переклад книги який взагалі може існувати. Перекладали з російської, машинним перекладом і без редагування серйозно, редактора не було. Книга зустріне вас російськими словами, повторенням речень, і "и" замість цифр. .