Peter Doyle

Iain McIntyre

Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. As the young created new styles in music, fashion, and culture, pulp fiction shadowed their every move, hyping and exploiting their behaviour, dress, and language for mass consumption and cheap thrills. From the juvenile delinquent gangs of the early 1950s through the beats and hippies, on to bikers, skinheads, and punks, pulp fiction left no trend untouched. With their lurid covers and wild, action-packed plots, these books reveal as much about society's deepest desires and fears as they do about the subcultures themselves.

Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 To 1980

Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats

The fossil-bearing rocks of the British Isles represent life from the last 2,900 million years and the UK is seen by many as the cradle of modern geology. Using the geological map of Britain, expert palaeontologist Peter Doyle offers a comprehensive guide to fossils in the UK, plotting the main fossil groups around the country, and relating them to the different ages of the rock in which they are found. With photographs of the fossils that can be discovered, and tips on how to find them yourself, British Fossils is the perfect companion for the novice fossil hunter or enthusiast.

British Fossils

World War I in 100 Objects by Peter Doyle is a dynamic social history and perfect gift for history lovers. General readers and history buffs alike have made bestsellers of books like A History of the World in 100 Objects. In that tradition, this handsome commemorative volume gives a unique perspective on one of the most pivotal and volatile events of modern history. In World War I in 100 Objects, military historian Peter Doyle shares a fascinating collection of items, from patriotic badges worn by British citizens to field equipment developed by the United States. Beautifully photographed, each item is accompanied by the unique story it tells about the war, its strategy, its innovations, and the people who fought it.

World War I in 100 Objects

At last the much anticipated follow up to City of Shadows. Peter Doyle's new book tells the real story behind the mysterious photographs from early Australian police records. He adds flesh to the haunting images of the crims, prostitutes, pick pockets and pimps that stare back at us from history.

Crooks Like Us

The Great War continues to fascinate, and never more so as we approach 2014, the centenary year of its outbreak. There is an abiding fascination in the uniform and equipment of the British Great War soldier. What was it like to wear? What were puttees? What does a gas mask look like? How heavy was the equipment? How did you dig a trench? These and other typical questions will be answered in Haynes Manual style, providing a vivid insight into life during the Great War for the average “Tommy Atkins."

The British soldier 1914-1918 (all models)

Great War Tommy

The First World War has left an almost indelible mark on history, with battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele becoming watchwords for suffering unsurpassed. The dreadful fighting on the Western Front, and elsewhere in the world, remains vivid in the public imagination. Over the years dozens of books have been published dealing with the soldier's experience, the military history and the weapons and vehicles of the war, but there has been little devoted to the objects associated with those hard years in the trenches. Tommy's War (new in paperback) redresses that balance. With hundreds of carefully captioned photographs of items that would have been part of the everyday life for the British Tommy; from recruiting posters, uniforms and entrenching equipment to games, postcards and pieces of 'trench art,' this book brings to life the experience of the Great War soldier through the objects with which he would have been surrounded.

British Military Memorabilia 1914-1918 New Edition

Tommy's War

Frank and Percy Talley of the 1st City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders) were destined to leave England to take part in the last, and most costly, single-day battle of the Gallipoli Campaign, on 21 August 1915. In never-before published letters, the Talley brothers describe their training in England and their move to the East Coast to man the trenches there during the invasion scare of 1914 and the Zeppelin attack at Great Yarmouth. Their letters provide a rare insight into the activities of the yeomen in preparing for war, their transportation to Egypt and Suez and their expectation that they would be used in action at Gallipoli. After walking into a maelstrom of fire on 21 August 1915, the trooper-brothers were separated; each wrote home not knowing whether the other had survived. Both were wounded. Their letters from the Suvla trenches are brief but telling – the last, desperate battle for Gallipoli as seen through the eyes of two brothers from London.

Two Brothers and the Last Stand at Gallipoli

Rough Riders

The First World War profoundly changed British society. The armed forces' need for mass recruitment saw the workforce severely depleted, with women stepping up to shoulder the burden; but nobody could ignore the social upheaval or the strains put upon daily life. With poverty a major issue at the outbreak of war, the extra wages put more food on the table for many families, in spite of rationing and shortages, and away from the front the nation prospered. The war intervened in all aspects of home life, and attacks from the sea and the air meant that civilians were caught up in 'total war'. Peter Doyle explores how British citizens met these challenges, looking at such aspects of daily life as clothing restrictions and popular arts, alongside broader issues like food shortages and industrial unrest.

1914–1919

First World War Britain

Peter Chasseaud

The failure of the Gallipoli campaign was instantly blamed on a great untruth – that the War Office was unprepared. This book, incorporating information unavailable elsewhere, shows that in fact the WO and the Admiralty had amassed a huge amount of data. Aerial reconnaissance had played a part – even Lawrence of Arabia had done his bit! The War Office knew all about Greek plans to capture the peninsula and one plan was even Anglo-Greek. The authors examine all the intelligence and how it was used or ignored and in the process, in the words of the late Richard Holmes they ‘illuminate a wildly beautiful landscape, which never fails to charm and shock me in equal measure.’

Terrain, Maps and Failure at the Dardanelles, 1915

Grasping Gallipoli

Chris Foster

On the centenary of the Great War comes this poignant look at fifty objects never far from Tommy's side – official uniform, good-luck charms, phrasebooks, a sweetheart's letter, some unexpected and others more familiar. With sumptuous original photography and thoughtful text, this is life as the ordinary First World War soldier knew it. Inside front: What Tommy Took To War tells sobering, fascinating stories that bring the ordinary Tommy's experiences back to life with poignant immediacy. With striking original photography by Chris Foster and expert text from noted historian Peter Doyle, it looks in detail at fifty objects that Tommy would have had in his kit and which would have accompanied, equipped and comforted him during his wartime ordeals: official uniform, training manual, cigarettes, good-luck charms, sweethearts' letters, foreign phrasebook and myriad others. Together, these artefacts give us a serious and informative, yet touching and even occasionally amusing, picture of the ordinary soldier's experience of the First World War.

1914–1918

What Tommy Took to War

The failure of the Gallipoli campaign was instantly blamed on a great untruth - that the War Office was unprepared for Dardanelles operations and gave Sir Ian Hamilton little in the way of maps and terrain intelligence. This myth is repeated by current historians. The Dardanelles Commission became a battleground of accusation and counter-accusation. This book, incorporating much previously unpublished material, demonstrates that geographical intelligence preparations had indeedbeen made by the War Office and the Admiralty for decades. They had collected a huge amount of terrain information, maps and charts covering the topography and defences, and knew a great deal about Greek plans to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula. At least one plan was Anglo-Greek!Much of this material, which is here identified and evaluated, was handed over to Hamilton's Staff. Additional material was obtained in theatre before the landings, T. E. Lawrence playing a part. This book, which is the first to examine the intelligenceand mapping side of the Dardanelles campaign, looks closely at its terrain, and describes the production and development of new operations maps, and clarifies whether the intelligence was properly processed and efficiently used. It also examines the use of aerial photos taken by the Royal Naval Air Service during the campaign, and charting, hydrographic and other intelligence work by the Royal Navy.

Objects allow us to reach out and touch the past and they play a living role in history today. Through them we can understand the experience of men and women during the First World War. They bear witness to the stories of men whose only morning comfort in the trenches was the rum ration, children who grew up with only one photograph of the father that they would never get to know, women who would sacrifice their girlhood in hospitals yards from the frontline, pinning a brooch on to remind themselves of a past life. Weapons like the machine gun and vehicles like the tank that transformed the battlefield; planes that had barely learnt to be flown entangled in dogfights far above the barbed wire of the frontline; German submarines that stalked shipping across the seas. Through these incredible artefacts, Peter Doyle tells the story of the First World War in a whole new light.

The First World War in 100 Objects

The British soldier of the Great War has been depicted in many books. Invariably, a pen picture paints him as stoic, joining the army in a wave of patriotic fervour, and destined to serve four years on the Western Front in some of the most costly battles in history. Yet often the picture is difficult to resolve for the reader. What was it like in the trenches? How did the soldier live, where did he sleep? What was it like to go over the top, and when he did, what did he carry with him? For many, the idea of trench life is hazy, and usually involves ‘drowning in mud’, in, as one writer put it, ‘the pitiless misery’ of Passchendaele. Recently, military historians have presented an alternative picture, a picture in which the hopelessness of the First World War is given new life and purpose. Remembering Tommy pays tribute to the real life British soldier of the Great War from the moment of joining up to their final homecoming. Using original artefacts in historic settings, the men and their words are brought to life. The uniforms they wore, the equipment they carried, the letters they wrote home, their personal possessions, mementos and photographs come together in a powerful tribute to the indomitable Tommy. Each one of these precious artefacts bears witness to the men who left them behind – allowing us to almost reach out and touch history.

The British Soldier in the First World War

Remembering Tommy

Peter Barton

The first publication of a unique, unseen collection of over 500 panoramic photographs of the Western Front. Here are the great battlegrounds of the First World War as you have never seen them before, from the First Battle of Ypres where gallant men on horseback find things do not go to plan to the closing horror of the mud at Passchendaele. The book showcases the most eye-opening panoramas, along with poignant personal photographs and the recollections of the soldiers caught in action in the battles shown. These panoramic photographs were the nearest thing to satellite mapping in their day, taken by the British Royal Engineers for intelligence purposes thoughout the war. The photographers had to spend tens of minutes with their head above the parapet - a view normally seen by the troops only through a trench periscope. Many of the images give a field of view of up to 160 degrees, and so sharp that individual figures - a soldier picking lice on his shirt, a sniper lying in wait - can be made out. The images cover the whole of the Western Front, end to end. For the general buyer they have an impact unlike anything seen before. For the specialist, they document a lost world, putting other forms of archive into temporal, topographical and geographical context. What they reveal challenges existing perceptions of the First World War. As well as tortured landscapes of featureless mud, they also show fields of flowers, beaches, churches still standing. There are desperate scenes for sure, but an important lesson is that much of the war was fought in a real, recognizable landscape.

From the First Battle of Ypres to Passchendaele

The Battlefields of the First World War

The fascination with the British involvement in the First World War extends to all aspects of the conflict. The battles and their outcomes; the armies and their leaders; the conditions of trench warfare; and the controversies form part of the growing literature examining every aspect of a war that was to cast a shadow over the rest of the twentieth century, the effects of which are still being felt today. For the British army, the cap badge is the most easily identifiable form of insignia. It represents a distillation of the pride of the regiment, its various battle honors and symbols borne proudly on the metallic emblem that was worn on all headdress, even within the trenches. Identification of the cap badge on old photographs is a first, important step in unraveling the military service of an individual. Cap badges have been collected avidly since they were first thought of in the nineteenth century. Cap-badge collecting is as popular now as it has ever been; yet with a growing number of fakes and forgeries, there is a need for a book that illustrates clearly the main types, and allows the collector and family historian alike to understand their meaning. Surprisingly, there are no real comprehensive web-based resources; and the available books (many of which are out of print), are often dull, arcane and poorly illustrated with grey, muddy images of otherwise spectacular badges. This book illustrates, for the first time in full color and high quality, images of the main types of badges used by the British Army in World War I. In addition, contemporary illustrations of the soldiers themselves wearing the badges, and the wider importance of their symbolism, is also included. Employing the skills of an established writer (and collector) and artist, it provides a unique reference guide for all people interested in the World War I.

British Army Cap Badges of the First World War

The First World War affected the lives of a whole generation of people in Britain and the Commonwealth. Most people living today will have an ancestor who fought or died in the conflict, and as the 90th anniversary of the conclusion of the war approaches, there has been a rush of people trying to trace their ancestors and understand what life for them was like during World War I. While the familiar images - the photographs, film, poetry and prose of the First World War focus on the hellish trenches, mud and death, there is another dimension to the soldiers life in the war - that of everyday life at the front. The Tommy was only in the trenches for at most one-quarter of his time overseas, and when away from the front, vigorous routine, training and order soon took over. Peter Doyle addresses this, describing the lives of British soldiers while not in the trenches at the front, exploring the life of the average soldier of the First World War and answering the question: what was it really like to be a soldier in the trenches on the frontline.

The British Soldier of the First World War

Geology of the Western Front, 1914-1918

"The second book in a series of crime novels featuring Billy Glasheen and set in Australia post-1945"--

Amaze Your Friends

For the British army, the cap badge is the most easily identifiable of insignia. It represents a distillation of the pride of the regiment, its various battle honours and symbols born proudly on the metallic emblem that was worn on all head-dress, even in the age of mechanised warfare. Identification of the cap badge on faded photographs is a first, important step in unravelling the military service of an individual; and for the soldiers of the Second World War, clad in dowdy and undistinguished battledress, its significance is enhanced still further. Cap badges have been collected avidly since they were first thought of in the nineteenth century. Cap badge collecting is as popular now as it has ever been; yet with a growing number of fakes and forgeries, there is a need for a book that illustrates clearly the main types, and allows the collector and family historian alike to understand their meaning. This book will illustrate, for the first time in high quality full colour, images of the main types of badges used by the British Army in the Second World War. With many amalgamations, war-raised units and special-forces, the insignia of the British soldier has a surprising range that differs materially from that worn by the soldier of the generation before. As with 'British Army Cap Badges of the First World War', this volume will contain contemporary illustrations of the soldiers themselves wearing the badges, a feature that has been widely applauded. Employing the skills of an established writer (and collector) and artist, it will provide a unique reference guide for all people interested in the British Army of the period.

Peter Doyle

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