Jamie Swift
Författare till The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War
Verk av Jamie Swift
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
Medlemmar
Recensioner
Priser
Statistik
- Verk
- 12
- Medlemmar
- 100
- Popularitet
- #190,120
- Betyg
- 3.1
- Recensioner
- 2
- ISBN
- 25
So when I saw this I was eager for better understanding. The first chapters laid out the argument, and then the rest of the book devolved into messy circuits through history, circling back and throwing in bits of stories and dropping names with not a thing to hang them on. I quickly became confused and had to give up.
A good editor could have fixed this, put together a more coherent argument and/or history of this time. At present it is almost unreadable.
It also falls into the sad trap of thinking that only men and generals have any importance in the creation of myths. I would LOVE to read how women were persuaded to send their sons to be perished. There’s a mention of the poor woman who lost five sons in the war and gosh, she got a medal. Made me nauseous, that. Did they support her in her old age? Did they support any of the returning soldiers?
Perhaps that is a foundation myth we should promote instead- the was we eventually managed to create a social safety net. In these times where that is at risk of being lost (it is already cut and bleeding), we could focus on our history of working together instead of gathering to kill people. Heaven knows we need a refocus. And fewer graves of people who think they are “fighting for Canada and democracy”.… (mer)