The Modern Classics Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme And Ancre 1916 (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a senior fellow of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His books include The House of Rothschild, Empire, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, The Great Degeneration and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist. His many prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a senior fellow of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His books include The House of Rothschild, Empire, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, The Great Degeneration and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist. His many prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

Stanley McGeagh's low-key, dispassionate narration may at first seem unsuited to a novel set on the horrific Western Front of WWI. But Manning's novel is nothing if not matter-of-fact in its depiction of the lives of ordinary British infantry soldiers who are called upon to fight and die in the cause. Manning is concerned with the ordinariness of life even in the extraordinary situation of war. He details the drudgery, the camaraderie, the animosities, and the longings of soldiers, interspersed, of course, with moments of profound terror and dread. McGeagh's sober, measured reading gets across the notion that even when violence and destruction are the norms, the most mundane and fundamental aspects of living persist. M.O. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine