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IMAGES
Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, the Middle East, Africa. Photographs and videos of present-day carnage are readily available in the print media, on television and via the Internet. The following books present the stark images of war to us by use of illustration, paintings and photographs.

Mikhail Trakhman, a prominent Soviet photojournalist said “I don’t feel that I have yet managed to come to grips with the war, nor have I depicted it in all its horror”, “It is my desire to create …for young people so that they will not forget.”

  The War Illustrators / Pat Hodgson  

Relentless Verity: Canadian Military Photographers since 1885 / Peter Robinson

Shooting under fire: the world of the war photographer / Peter Howe

The Faces of World War 1: the Great War in words and pictures / Max Arthur

The Russian War: 1941-1945 / Daniela Mrazkova

Deeds of War: photographs / James Nachtwey

Early War Photographs: 50 years of war photographs from the nineteenth century/ Pat Hodgson

To the Kwai and Back: war drawings 1939-45 / Ronald Searle

Images of War / Robert Capa

A Terrible Beauty: the art of Canada at war / Heather Robertson

War Photographer/ directed by Christian Frei

WORDS
From the war in South Africa to Afghanistan today, letters written home to loved ones from the frontlines cover the range of emotions from humour and the joy of surviving to anguish, pain and despair. They vividly bring to life parts of our history that could so easily be forgotten.

Letters and Diaries
The Book of War Letters: 100 years of Private Canadian Correspondence / Audrey and Paul Grescoe

A Deep Cry: First World War soldier-poets killed in France and Flanders / Anne Powell

Dear America: letters home from Vietnam / Bernard Edelman

Behind the Lines: powerful and revealing American and foreign war letters / Andrew Carroll

War Letters: extraordinary correspondence from American Wars / Andrew Carroll

We’re in this war too: World War II letters from American women in uniform / Judy Barrett Litoff

All for the Union: the Civil War diary and letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes / Robert Hunt Rhodes

War correspondents
Reporting the War: the journalistic coverage of World War II / Frederick Voss
The lives and works of journalists, artists and broadcasters who risked their lives to cover the war in Europe and the Pacific are profiled in this very interesting book.

Freetown Ambush: a reporter’s year in Africa / Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart tells the extraordinary story of the unspeakable violence and devaluation of human life he witnessed as a war correspondent in West Africa and his remarkable recovery after being shot by rebels in Sierra Leone.

In the Hot Zone: one man, one year, twenty wars/  Kevin Sites
As the first Internet correspondent for Yahoo! News, Sites started in Somalia in 2005 and within a year had reported from many of the world's most tragically war-torn countries, putting a human face on war's inhumanity. The book includes a bonus DVD called “A World of Conflict”

SOUNDS
The immediacy and impact of radio broadcasting brought the drama of World War II to the world. Listeners heard the sounds of London during the Blitz, stirring speeches of wartime leaders, harrowing stories broadcast from the battlefield and haunting accounts of the liberation of concentration camps.

The Sound of War: Memoirs of a CBC Correspondent / Peter Stursberg
Stursberg’s memoirs provide an insightful account of the daily lives of Canadian troops as they landed in Sicily, invaded France and liberated the Netherlands.

This is London / Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow’s famous broadcasts from London from August 1939 to the spring of 1941, provide a fascinating portrait of people under siege; their changing hopes, fears and endeavours.

World War II on the air: Edward R. Murrow and the broadcasts that riveted a nation/ Mark Bernstein
The dramatic stories that were provided by Murrow and his team of exceptional journalists are enhanced for us through the texts, photographs and context given in this fascinating book. The accompanying CD lets us hear the actual broadcasts that defined the war with their stark reality.


November 2008
Hamilton Public Library
Hamilton Ontario Canada