From the Inside Flap All war is tragic and brutal, none more so than the Second World War. For those born after 1945, the war has appeared only in black and white in countless books, films, and grainy newsreels, even though much of it was shot in color by both military units and amateur filmmakers. Color photography was expensive to develop, and the media were reluctant to show all the horrors of battle in - what at the time was thought to be unbearable - color to the "home front." The Second World War in Color contains more than two hundred compelling color images, from the grueling conditions of the front lines, to aerial dogfights and blazing cities, to the utter devastation of Hiroshima following the dropping of the atomic bomb. Ten years of exhaustive research has enabled these largely unseen stills to be compiled for the first time into a remarkable record, removing the veil of time and chiaroscuro to forever change our view of the Second World War. In addition to the drama of the color images, there are harrowing testaments and recollections by hundreds of individuals of different nationalities who bring color to the record in a different way with their very personal experiences of what it was like to fight, mourn, suffer, and finally celebrate during those long six years when the world was at total war. Two generations have grown up since the Second World War to think of that war as a conflict fought in black and white. These color images bring home the horrors and stresses of that war for the first time with a vivid new clarity. This is war seen face-to-face, not through a glass darkly. Read more About the Author Stewart Binns is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker who has won more than a dozen international awards for his work. Adrian Wood's research in the world's film archives has spanned twenty-five years, unearthing in particular unique material from the Second World War. His credits include the Oscar-winning documentary Anne Frank Remembered and the BAFTA award-winning series The Nazis: A Lesson from History. Sir Ludovic Kennedy is a distinguished television and radio broadcaster in Great Britain as well as a writer and noted campaigner against miscarriages of justice. His first book, Sublieutenant, was published during the Second World War and was based on his experiences in Scapa Flow where he was involved in forays against the German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. He is also the maker of many successful documentaries including Battleship Bismarck. The Imperial War Museum, based in London, is one of the world's most impressive war museums and has given advice and supplied archive images for this book. It combines a huge range of wartime exhibits with interactive displays that take visitors beyond the military hardware to an understanding of the nature of war itself. Read more
F**A
A war transformed
I agree with the premise that wars before Vietnam always seemed to appear in black and white photos and newsreels, giving us a distorted picture of what occurred. This book attempts, in a small way, to redress that impression, through the printing of a series of color photos of the war. These photos show war in a more terrible light, because the color certainly adds a glint of realism that is lacking in monochrome. The book also includes a brief text and timeline on the war, which is adequate for a work of this type. The letters, documents, etc, included in the book are almost as instructive as the photos, and often more so, since they give the people involved in the war new life, and tell us how they thought and felt during those turbulent times. I highly recommend this book, even if you only purchase it for the pictures!
A**N
A Unique and Poignant View of the Second World War
I picked up this book last November.......Expecting to have this read in an hour or so, I kept returning to viewing both the photographs - many of which were never published before - and the excerpted text - and much of those passages were quite poignant and difficult reads.There was the description of the death of a young Welsh miner fighting in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. The account was written was a fellow member of the British Battalion, and although presumably a Communist, the passage spoke of Wales, family and the Spanish earth in which the boy died.The family accounts telling of RAF fliers who never returned from their bombing missions over Germany, or the haunted German tank officer in a Berlin shelter at the onslaught of the Russian advance telling his fellow Germans to fight to the death because of the depravations done by the Wehrmacht and SS in France,Russia and elsewhere.Then there is the horrifying and heartrending account of a Jewish rickshaw driver in the Warsaw Ghetto being tortured to death by a sadistic SS officer for crossing his path.These passages provide a worthy though not always matching narrative to the photographs.Yes, there are complaints about the photographs. But remember, colour photography was about as new in the Second World War as black and white photography was in the American Civil War. It wasn't always possible to match a colour photograph with an event,especially in the case of the Holocaust, or when a battle was in full rage.And the photograph of an atomic bomb explosion over a Japanese city was in reality the explosion of an H-Bomb over a pacific island in the 1950s.The book is very much worth the purchase to experience to newness of colour photography combined with readable reference of what the common man or women experienced during World War II. At least it kept my interest in that almost 12 hour flight home.
D**L
I wish all high school students had to use this book
All too often, you hear someone say that "nobdoy teaches history anymore." This book would really help to do that. The reason this book is different is that it is packed with lots of color pictures that help make the secnes of World War II much more real, and not in the usual age-distorted color more commonly seen. The accompanying text includes very useful timelines, and then the real treat- letters and documents from both sides of the conlfict, Allied and Axis, personal and official. This would be a great book to use to have students see, think, and learn about this pivotal time from many different perspectives.
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