A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR

[daveuk6]

Title: A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR

Author Name: Hammerton, Sir J A (ed)

Publisher: London, The Fleetway House, No date.

Is this set of books any good as i have been offerd them

Dave

[Lost in Tilloy]

Hi Dave

I purchased a set on E-Bay recently for a reasonable price and am currently reading through them. The books I have are quite compact and easy to read with a number of maps and photos. My opinion so far is that they give a good overall picture of the war rather than focussing on particular units etc. Each volume gives a diary of main events and there are also some useful biographical descriptions of certain leaders/personalities associated with the war.

For me personally it was a good investment that has helped fill out my knowledge of what was happening in other places, but that is just a personal opinion.

Regards

LIT

[daveuk6]

Hi Lit

Thank you for that think i will get them

Dave

[J Banning]

Dave,

Just to add my bit. My father in law amazed me by buying me the set of six after spying them for sale in a charity shop window. All 6 volumes for £10 which I think is pretty good considering each book has about 600 pages.

I picked them up this weekend after visting the outlaws and, having flicked through them, I think that they seem pretty useful and a sound investment. Lots on other theatres that I freely admit I know nothing about and some nice (if somewhat grainy) pictures. Had a look on abebooks.com and found all six volumes for sale for £12.50 so make sure you don't pay much more than that! Can't really go wrong for such a small amount of money.

Cheers

[MartinWills]

It's a bonus of many of the histories published not long after the war (this one; H W Wilson in 13 Volumes; the Times History of the War; The Manchester Guardian History of the War etc etc) that they do not suffer from the "blinkered" Western Front and not much else view that we have seen in the UK in more recent years. There is plenty of coverage of the other fronts - indeed one of the leading lights on the Eastern Front ecently recommended the Times History of the Great War as one of the best sources for the Eastern Front - especially in the early part of the war. Add to that the fact that they remain fresh and have not gained that hindsight of the 1930 - 1980 years of the butchers and bunglers school of history which modern historians are now unravelling.

In all they are often a good and worthwhile read whilst retaining some of the patriotism and censorship of the era (less of the latter than you might think). Some are worth it for the illustrations alone!

[keith@colourplus]

I bought the 6 volume's of Hammerton 'A popular history of the Great War' for about 2/- (10p) some 30 years ago;

my wife has filed some of them but I think I still have them all. They have been very useful as doorstops, paperweights, shelf levellers and as such are treasured family furniture.

I must admit my first reading of them was too hurried as I wanted to get through them, but I've just reread a chapter from Vol 5 on the March offensive 1918 and it's a good overall read with enough detail to understand the events as they unfolded including edited highlights of particular units and background references to national and international issues such as the command chain change.

Lots of reasonable general maps and photos (some better than others - all better than nothing).

6 volumes now for around £10 can't be bad.

Llandodlad

[captain barker]

I am just wondering if there is a photograph of my great-grandfather in them. He was in the War Illustrated Hammerton book's. His name is Skipper Robert Barker RNR awarded the DSC for minesweeping. In the War Illustrated he is in Volume 7 around September 1917. 

[tharkin56]

your lucky i indexed the entire lot of War Illustrated he is in volume 7 and appeared on the 22/9/17 on page 120. The page reference is on the DVD i had so if you go by date you should find it.