First published in 1972, Human Documents of the Lloyd George Era presents the years when Lloyd George was in his prime, and his career in peace and war may be seen as the frame in which the ‘documents’ find their proper place; but the book’s real subject is not Lloyd George, it is the People, with whom he identified himself and spent his long life trying to serve. For the purpose of this book Lloyd George Era is taken as the period from 1905. The early documents enable us to reconstruct a vivid picture of life as it was lived ‘before the war’ by such people as London artisans, Middlesbrough ironworkers, Lancashire factory hands, Northumbrian pit-folk and farm labourers, while extracts from reports of the first ‘Lady Factory Inspectors’ and of the great Royal Commission on the Poor Law highlight the grim situation of the ‘Pauper Host’. With the outbreak of war, the mood changes, as Lloyd George leads the People in a massive war effort on the home front, producing munitions and trying to maintain normal industrial output. A glimpse is given of the various contributions made by women. Out of a vast mass of tiny details a picture emerges of an essentially peace- loving people joining forces to achieve what Lloyd George called ‘the bloodstained stagger’ to victory. This is an essential read for students of British history.

The First World War appears as a fault line in Britain’s twentieth-century history. Between August 1914 and November 1918 the titanic struggle against Imperial Germany and her allies consumed more people, more money and more resources than any other conflict that Britain had hitherto experienced. For the first time, it opened up a Home Front that stretched into all parts of the British polity, society and culture, touching the lives of every citizen regardless of age, gender and class: vegetables were even grown in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Britain and World War One throws attention on these civilians who fought the war on the Home Front. Harnessing recent scholarship, and drawing on original documents, oral testimony and historical texts, this book casts a fresh look over different aspects of British society during the four long years of war. It revisits the early war enthusiasm and the making of Kitchener’s new armies; the emotive debates over conscription; the relationships between politics, government and popular opinion; women working in wartime industries; the popular experience of war and the question of social change. This book also explores areas of wartime Britain overlooked by recent histories, including the impact of the war on rural society; the mobilization of industry and the importance of technology; responses to air raids and food and housing shortages; and the challenges to traditional social and sexual mores and wartime culture. Britain and World War One is essential reading for all students and interested lay readers of the First World War.

'They also serve who only stand and wait' The idea of there being a 'women's writing' during the First World War is often dismissed. The war, the story goes, was a masculine domain, and as women did not fight, it is also assumed that they were excluded from a war experience. This bibliography challenges that view by listing and annotating hundreds of published books, articles, memoirs, diaries and letters written by women during the First World War. Included are: * Virginia Woolf * Katherine Mansfield * G.B Stern * Brenda Girvin * known and unknown autobiographers and diarists * writers of pro and anti-war propaganda * journal and magazine articles * literary, cultural and historical criticism