Overview

The Crimean War is full of resonance - the battles of Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the seige of Sevastopol, Florence Nightingale at Scutari with her lamp. To contemporaries, it was not the Crimean War but 'The Great War with Russia' - ironically Britain's allies were France, her traditional enemy, and the Ottoman Empire, widely seen as an infidel, corrupt Islamic power. Britain was unable fully to deploy her greatest strength, the Royal Navy, while her army was run by incompetent aristocrats. With his sharp eye and analytical mind, Clive Ponting explodes many of the romantic myths which grew up in the years following th war, while telling the tru story of the heroism of ordinary men. Above all, he makes use of the testimony of eye-witness accounts, from William Russell of 'The Times, the first war correspondent, to Leo Tolstoy, who was caught up in the action while visiting his brother, to the memories of a variety of serving soldiers.

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9780701173906

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Reviews

The Crimean War lasted from 1854 to 1856 and cost over 500,000 British, French and Russian lives, yet ask the British public about it and you will only hear about The Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale. Clive Ponting covers this poorly known subject with enthusiasm and aplomb, the story moves at a good pace and is very readable. He goes back to the rather confusing beginnings, six years before a shot was fired. Rather than re-hashing the history books, he turns to first hand accounts for his illustration of the war; letters and diaries from several serving soldiers tell it as it really happened. This was a war of first - the first rifles, the firs use of steamships to transfer troops, the first war journalist and the first war photographer - Ponting encompasses them all into this excellent account of the Forgotten War. 2004 is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Crimean conflict and it is due time for its story to be re-told to a new generation. This is the book to do it. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Clive Ponting is Reader in Politics at the University of Wales, Swansea. He is the author of the bestselling Green History of the World, as well as the Pimlico History of the Twentieth Century and the Pimlico World History. He has written a revisionist biography of Churchill and a book, Armageddon, about the 2nd world war, as well as Thirteen Days, which detailed the diplomacy leading up to the 1st world war. He lives in Wales.

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