Customer Reviews

Blighty: British Society in the Era of the Great War

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This is a 1996 book covering the same subject as The Deluge: British Society and the First World War, by Arthur Marwick (read by me with much appreciation 20 Oct 1985), and anyone interested in Britain at home during the Great War will be caught up by this book. Especially worthwhile to me was Chapter 14, entitled "The Dead, the Living, and the Living Dead" which considers memorials and observances of the men who served in the War. An especially attractive feature of DeGroot's style is his frequent quoting from wartime poetry. For instance, I was struck by these evocative lines quoted from Ivor Gurney:

He's gone, and all our plans
Are useless indeed;
We'll walk no more on Cotswold
Where the sheep feed
Quietly and take no heed.

There is an excellent bibliography and I counted 24 books therein which I have read. But of course there are books therein which I would like to read, if I live long enough--as is always true in a good bibliography in a book on a fascinating subject such as the subject of this book.