The Crimean War and its Afterlife
Making Modern Britain

Rescuing the Crimean War from the shadows, Lara Kriegel demonstrates the centrality of a Victorian war to the making of modern Britain.

Lara Kriegel (Author)

9781108842228, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 February 2022

340 pages
23.6 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm, 0.671 kg

'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

The mid-nineteenth century's Crimean War is frequently dismissed as an embarrassment, an event marred by blunders and an occasion better forgotten. In The Crimean War and its Afterlife Lara Kriegel sets out to rescue the Crimean War from the shadows. Kriegel offers a fresh account of the conflict and its afterlife: revisiting beloved figures like Florence Nightingale and hallowed events like the Charge of the Light Brigade, while also turning attention to newer worthies, including Mary Seacole. In this book a series of six case studies transport us from the mid-Victorian moment to the current day, focusing on the heroes, institutions, and values wrought out of the crucible of the war. Time and again, ordinary Britons looked to the war as a template for social formation and a lodestone for national belonging. With lucid prose and rich illustrations, this book vividly demonstrates the uncanny persistence of a Victorian war in the making of modern Britain.

Introduction: 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.

Subject Areas: Crimean War [HBWL], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]