Charge

by Justin Pollard

War brings out the very best and worst in people although, frankly, its usually the latter. But for all our thousands of years of practice at this most dangerous art there is precious little evidence that we're either outgrowing it or getting any good at it. It is an occupation filled with heroism, genius, hubris, idiocy and blind panic all bought on at least in part by large measures of astonishingly good and bad luck - and they're all here in Charge! This is not a book filled with battle diagrams swarming with arrows or 100,000 word descriptions of the tactical basis for the Pastry War. It is a book about the smaller tragedies and triumphs that actually go to make up the big picture - toilets that sink U-boats, unsporting attacks on Christmas day, armies that stop for tea, bombs on renegade balloons, drunk generals, blind kings, blind drunk generals, circular warships, and all the joy and misery that such things bring with them. And an interesting bit about the Pastry War.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 2, 2008

About the author

Justin Pollard was born in Hertfordshire and educated at St. Albans School and Downing College, Cambridge where he was president of the Poohsticks Society.

Since then he has written nine books, a few articles for magazines like History Today, BBC History Magazine and the Idler and he is currently one of the writers of the BBC panel show QI.

He is one of the founders of Unbound - http://www.unbound.co.uk - a new crowd-funding site putting authors directly in touch with their readers.

He also runs a company called Visual Artefact which provides scripting and historical advice for feature films. His credits include Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Elizabeth’, Joe Wright’s ‘Atonement’, Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

In television drama he is the historical consultant for the BBC TV/Showtime series ‘The Tudors’ - which gets him into a lot of trouble with other historians.

He is also the co-founder of crowd-funding book website www.unbound.co.uk.

He lives in Dorset where he grows vegetables and wonders where all the sheep have gone.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining collection of stories of military ineptitude …. Sort of “did you hear about …” stories.

[Duzzlebrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It amuses me somewhat that Justin Pollard gave this book five stars. Yes, we know you like it. You wrote it. The question is whether the rest of us like it too.
As it happens, the answer to that question is yes.

A few of the stories in here were familiar, the rest weren't, but they're the sort of stories a history buff trots out to impress non-history buffs. It's a whole book of 'did you hear the story of the guy who...'

[Pru Sly]

Good fun - and very easy to pick up put down. The kind of book I found myself reading extracts from to my husband. Or laughing out loud at in crowded places!

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book with many amusing, and interesting, stories.