Men of War

Men of War examines five types of personal narrative -- including men's letters home from the front, wartime diaries, letters of condolence, letters from disabled ex-servicemen to the Ministry of Pensions, and post-war memoirs -- to explore how understandings of masculinity were constructed by British First World war servicemen. It investigates how specific situations, use of language and the intended audience shaped the ways in which masculine identities were presented in these documents. By placing these individual constructions in the context of cultural ideals of the soldier hero and the good husband and father, it presents a nuanced investigation of what it meant to be a man in Britain during and after the First World War.