Description
Book SynopsisRescuing the Crimean War from the shadows, Lara Kriegel illuminates the conflict and its afterlife. She revisits time-honored heroes like Florence Nightingale and the Light Brigade, while also showcasing newer worthies like Mary Seacole to demonstrate the centrality of a Victorian war to the making of modern Britain.
Trade Review'Beautifully written, gripping, and startlingly timely, Lara Kriegel's new work shows us both what is historically distinctive about the Crimean War and what lessons it holds for the wars and people that followed it. Kriegel offers new interpretations of the era's most cherished figures and tropes, but also immerses us in less canonical cultures of war. Deeply researched, uniting the best of cultural and military history, Kriegel's The Crimean War and its Afterlife proves decisively that we cannot leave the Crimean War in the nineteenth century.' Jordanna Bailkin, University of Washington
'In this richly textured study, Lara Kriegel shows us what the Crimean War has meant for successive generations of Britons, down to the 2016 statue of Mary Seacole in Lambeth. Through a combination of deep archival dives and a remarkable feel for the fabric of the Victorian past, she builds a powerful case for the long reach of the Crimea into the intimate recesses of local and national life across three centuries.' Antoinette Burton, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
'A fascinating, humane and deeply researched book, very much a history of the Crimean War for our times. Lara Kriegel peels back the layers of memory beyond the world wars of the twentieth century, to reveal the origins of the British self-image of 'do and die'.' Miles Taylor, Humboldt University of Berlin
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The reason why; 1. The adventurers; 2. The dutiful; 3. The brave; 4. The custodians; 5. The heroine; 6. The foremother; Afterword: Do or die.
