Joanna Bourke

"The Second World War surpassed all previous wars in the sheer cost of many millions of lives, the majority of them civilian. It left a world reeling from physical destruction on a scale never experience before or since, and from the psychological traumas of loss, of imprisonment and genocide, and permanent exile from home.". "In this short book, Joanna Bourke turns an unblinking eye on the events and outcomes in the vast number of places where the war was fought: throughout Western and Central Europe, on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union, in the Pacific, in Africa, in Asia. She shows where the strategic decisions came from and how they were implemented. In addition to the facts of this global conflict, she details the human, individual cost. Through diary entries and recorded oral history, we experience how ordinary people felt when they witnessed or heard of events, from the declaration of war on the radio to the mass murders carried out by Nazi soldiers in Russian villages." "Our understanding of the past conflict and our own age of violence and human atrocity into which the Second World War thrust us will be greatly enhanced by the scope and detail of this book."--BOOK JACKET.

An explosive book that puts the killing back into military history.

Some historians contend that femininity was "disrupted, constructed, and reconstructed" during World War I, but what happened to masculinity? Using evidence of letters, diaries and oral histories of members of the military and of civilians, Dismembering the Male explores the impact of the First World War on the male body. Each chapter explores a different facet of the war and masculinity in depth. Joanna Bourke concludes that those who were dismembered and disabled by the war were not viewed as passive or weak, like their civilian counterparts, but were the focus of much government and public sentiment. Those suffering from disease were viewed differently, often finding themselves accused of malingering. Dismembering the Male also examines the way in which the war affected men socially. The absence of women encouraged male intimacy, but differences of class, regiment, religion, and ethnicity acted as barriers between men and the trauma of war and the constant threat of death did not encourage closeness. Attitudes to the dead male body, which during the war became the property of the state, are also explored. Joanna Bourke argues convincingly that military experiences led to a greater sharing of gender identities between men of different classes and ages. Post-war debates on what constitutes masculinity were fueled by the actions of men's movements. Dismembering the Male concludes that ultimately, attempts to reconstruct a new type of masculinity failed as the threat of another war, and with it the sacrifice of a new generation of men, intensified.

A study of the lives of Irish women between 1890 and 1914, this book traces the shift of their labour out of the fields and into the home, showing how their position within the employment market deteriorated. It demonstrates that Irish women welcomed this altered role, preferring housework.

In 1872, a woman known only as 'An Earnest Englishwoman', published an open letter entitled 'Are women animals ' She protested that women were not treated as fully human; their status was worse than that of animals.