From Soldier to Civvy

From Soldier to Civvy

by Cameron Blake, ISBN:9781770221345, R180.00

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Following the success of Troepie: From Call-up to Camps, Cameron Blake’s new book looks at National Service from a number of different angles. The book contains seven in-depth accounts from a diverse selection of former conscripts – a recce, a dog handler, a mortarist, a parabat, a gunner, a loadmaster, a military policeman and a marine – who take you through their entire military careers and provide detailed insider’s information on each role. A number of frank and often humorous letters home from a soldier to his fiancée are also included in the book, and there are interviews with women – mothers, sisters, wives and girlfriends – who talk about how National Service affected them and their men. And, finally, former soldiers look back at their time in the army and reveal the powerful and lasting effects it has had on them and how they view it from the perspective of the present.

About the Author - Cameron Blake
Cameron Blake grew up in Johannesburg and studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town before completing his National Service in the early nineties. He currently works at The Africa Star, a shop that sells coins, medals and militaria, where he conducted the interviews that appear in this book. ...[more about Cameron Blake]

Great Military Disasters

Great Military Disasters from Cannae to Stalingrad

by Julian Spilsbury, ISBN:9781848660397, R224.95, Order Now

Book overview

Born as a Germanic tongue with the arrival in Britain of the Anglo-Saxons in the early medieval period, heavily influenced by Norman French from the 11th century, and finally emerging as modern English from the late Middle Ages, the English language has grown to become the linguistic equivalent of a superpower, and is now sometimes described as the world's lingua franca. Worldwide some 380 million people speak English as a first language and some 600 million as a second language. A staggering one billion people are believed to be learning it. English is the premier international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, and diplomacy and also on the Internet. It has been one of the official languages of the United Nations since its founding in 1945. It is considered by many good judges to be well on the way to becoming the world's first universal language. Author Philip Gooden tells the story of the English language in all its richness and variety. From the intriguing origins and changing definitions of common words such as 'OK', 'beserk', 'curfew', 'cabal' and 'pow-wow', to the massive transformations wrought in the vocabulary and structure of the language by Anglo-Saxon and Norman conquest, through to the literary triumphs of Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales and the works of Shakespeare. The Story of English is a fascinating tale of linguistic, social and cultural transformation, and one that is accessibly and authoritatively told by an author in perfect command of his material.