Author:Robert Graves
Robert Graves, aged nineteen, left school within a week of the outbreak of World War I, and immediately volunteered with the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His experiences as a junior officer form the heart of this compelling autobiography. Beginning with an ironic overview of his Edwardian childhood, he proceeds to a tongue-in-cheek account of a young poet's life at public school (not helpful to be half-German, but handy to take up boxing), progressing to caricatures of military stereotypes he encounters in training, and the devastating farce of the War itself, the blundering and mismanagement, and the appalling human consequences. Graves's handling of the horrors of war is always deadpan, honest and unadorned. It is wholly in line with his sense of the absurd that his commanding officer should write to inform his parents that he had died of wounds during the battle of the Somme. He soon found that patriotism was meaningless to the men in the trenches; loyalty to comrades alive and dead drove him back to active service though still suffering from shell-shock.
Goodbye to All That takes Graves through his convalescence in England, his efforts to protect the poet Siegfried Sassoon, a friend and fellow officer, from the consequences of his public denunciation of the war; marriage to artist and feminist Nancy Nicholson, postwar undergraduate years at Oxford and a decade as a struggling writer with four young children, beset with money problems and neurasthenia. It is written in a spirit of defiance as he prepared to put 'all that' behind him and begin a new life in Majorca with the American poet Laura Riding.
From the moment of its first appearance, an established classic.
—— ObserverFascinating, complex and exhaustively researched ... This is a book that travels far beyond the bomb-scarred walls of Broadcasting House, bringing the reader as it did the 1940s listening public, the drama and immediacy of the war, and eventually the reality of a post-Nazi world, where Dimbleby's pared down description of the liberation of Belsen must be one of the most shattering pieces of ever broadcast.
—— Juliet Nicolson , SpectatorThis book captures how and why the BBC came to be trusted around the world so much that people like my grandparents - refugees from the Nazis - would hide in a cupboard every day with their short wave radio just to hear the truth as reported by the BBC.
—— Nick RobinsonThe story of the BBC during the war has hardly been told though it is both fascinating and important. Edward Stourton's book is an engrossing account of this important time for one of our great institutions, perhaps to be read along side Penelope Fitzgerald's brilliant novel Human Voices.
—— Chris Patten, Lord Patten of BarnesThis engaging book about the BBC is full of astonishing incidents, truth versus propaganda and the unspoken heroism of correspondents. It tells how eyewitness reports gave a voice to everyone for the first time.
—— CHOICEHighly readable. Auntie's War captures the peculiar mix of establishment conservatism and technocratic progressivism that shaped the BBC during its first decades, and demonstrates the huge reward in soft power that Britain reaped from its broadcasts to occupied Europe . . . He successfully brings out the craft that enabled the best radio performers to enthral their listeners.
—— Dan Todman , BBC History MagazineHighly readable history
—— Ian Jack , London Review of BooksMust read: an affectionate and finely researched look at the BBC's inner workings during this critical period.
—— Jane Shilling , Daily MailBroadcaster Ed Stourton's history of the BBC during the war is rich in incident and character and almost makes you fall in love with the old girl again.
—— Choice MagazineLively...a definitive account
—— The i NewspaperThe BBC had a "good war". It generally gave a high-minded moral tone to Britain's war effort, entertained the people during dark and uncertain days and won their affection and confidence. In this engaging, balanced and thoroughly researched history, Edward Stourton, a veteran broadcaster, reveals how and why this occurred. It is a moving and amusing tale full of colourful episodes.
—— Lawrence James , The TimesFascinating
—— Stephanie Cross , Daily MailA truly great story
—— Peter Sharkey , The PostThe Czech nation will surely feel that he has done [Lata Brandisova] justice.
—— Robin Oakley , Literary ReviewFew historians could be better placed to investigate this subject than Keith Lowe . . . riveting
—— Evening StandardMagisterial. The biography of Maclean we have all been waiting for
—— Charles Cumming, author of the Thomas Kell seriesAdmirable… [a] compassionate, absorbing book
—— Miranda Carter , The Oldie[A] persuasive and polished biography
—— Sunday TimesRoland Philipps illuminates, in both broad and subtle strokes
—— John Lloyd , Financial TimesPhilipps does an admirable job of piecing together the spy’s tale
—— Mary Jo Murphy , Washington Post SundayPhilipps’s telling of the tale is masterly. He weaves a complex web of professional, psychological and marital themes into a wonderful fluent, coherent and compelling narrative
—— Xan Smiley , StandpointElegant, thorough and surprisingly exciting
—— Marcus Berkman , Daily Mail[A] superbly told tale
—— Daily Mail , Daily Mail, **Books of the Year**In A Spy Named Orphan Roland Philipps’s description of Donald Maclean’s psychological make-up chimes with what I have always felt about the Cambridge spies (Philby excepted) – namely, that their romance with the Soviet Union partook of patriotism as much as it did of espionage… Philipps makes the story and the slow uncovering of his treachery a gripping narrative and an overwhelmingly sad one
—— Alan Bennett , London Review of Books
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