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The Secret History of Soldiers
- How Canadians Survived the Great War
- Narrated by: J.D. Nicholsen
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter.
These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than 500 combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history tells how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front.
The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humor the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers.
With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.
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Performance
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The United States has always been a nation of immigrants---never more so than in 1917 when the nation entered the First World War. Of the 2.5 million soldiers who fought with U.S. armed forces in the trenches of France and Belgium, some half a million---nearly one out of every five men---were immigrants. In The Long Way Home, David Laskin, author of the prizewinning history The Children's Blizzard, tells the stories of 12 of these immigrant heroes.
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Incredible story of immigration and war
- By Daryl on 01-06-14
By: David Laskin
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Rites of Spring
- The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
- By: Modris Eksteins
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Dazzling in its originality, Rites of Spring probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of World War I from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. "The Great War", as Modris Eksteins writes, "was the psychological turning point...for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places."
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Fantastic
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17
By: Modris Eksteins
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To End All Wars
- A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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World War I stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain's leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates on toilet paper.
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A story of personalities
- By Tad Davis on 06-09-11
By: Adam Hochschild
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Looking for the Good War
- American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Elizabeth D. Samet
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans - all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States' "exceptional" history and destiny.
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Essential reading for military officers and political decision makers.
- By Arlene S. Burke on 02-23-22
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Flags of Our Fathers
- By: James Bradley, Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.
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awesome
- By Thomas on 11-29-06
By: James Bradley, and others
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Vietnam
- The Australian War
- By: Paul Ham
- Narrated by: Peter Byrne
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians, aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people, Paul Ham reconstructs for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti - war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefi eld, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians' war - which sealed the fate of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women.
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Fascinating detailed account
- By Alan T Alcock on 04-21-09
By: Paul Ham
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Patton
- Blood, Guts, and Prayer
- By: Michael Keane
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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No one in the history of warfare was less likely to follow that advice than George S. Patton, Jr. His place was in front of his men, and he paid the price, when he lay bleeding to death in a bomb crater in France. Patton’s survival that day at the end of World War I was nothing short of miraculous. It confirmed the powerful sense of destiny that guided him through three decades of war and made him a military legend. Patton has been venerated and despised but rarely understood. In Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer, Michael Keane penetrates the fog of legend and reveals as compelling a human character as any in American history.
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A different view of Patton
- By Jean on 06-19-13
By: Michael Keane
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Total War
- From Stalingrad to Berlin
- By: Michael Jones
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The powerful story of the Red Army's battle of liberation against the Nazi invader - from Stalingrad all the way to Berlin. In February 1943, German forces surrendered to the Red Army at Stalingrad, and the tide of war turned. By May 1945 Soviet soldiers had stormed Berlin and brought down Hitler's regime. Total War follows the fortunes of these fighters as they liberated Russia and the Ukraine from the Nazi invader and fought their way into the heart of the Reich. It reveals the horrors they experienced.
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Excellent history, great narration, worth it
- By Colin on 08-29-18
By: Michael Jones
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War Letters
- Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars
- By: Andrew Carroll
- Narrated by: Joan Allen, Tom Brokaw
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Abridged
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War Letters presents historic, dramatic, personal accounts of both World Wars, the Civil War, Vietnam, Korea, the Cold War, Somalia and the Balkans, revealing in vivid detail what the servicemen and women of America have experienced and sacrificed on the front lines. Read by an all-star cast, including Joan Allen, Tom Brokaw, Rob Lowe, Noah Wyle, and more.
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One of the best...
- By Chris on 01-14-03
By: Andrew Carroll
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Conversations with Major Dick Winters
- Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers
- By: Cole C. Kingseed
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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On the hellish battlefields of World War II Europe, Major Dick Winters led his Easy Company - the now-legendary Band of Brothers - from the confusion and chaos of the D-day invasion to the final capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. But Winters' story didn't end there; it was only the beginning. He was a quiet, reluctant hero whose modesty and strength drew the admiration of not only his men but millions worldwide.
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This one grows on you
- By David on 09-28-15
By: Cole C. Kingseed
What listeners say about The Secret History of Soldiers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J.Brock
- 07-11-22
Culture of Great War soldier
This book is a comprehensive overview of what life was life for the average Canadian soldier, serving in the Great War. It’s not really at all about the war itself but the culture. Very little if anything is about battles/ fighting except for generalities. This is the culture, what they did and what kept them going. The narration is exceptional. It’s very informative.
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