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Sober Men and True: Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy 1900-1945 by McKee: Used
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- Buy it nowSober Men and True: Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy 1900-1945 by McKee: Used
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Item specifics
- Condition
- Book Title
- Sober Men and True: Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy 1900-1945
- Publication Date
- 2002-05-30
- Pages
- 300
- ISBN
- 0674007360
- Subject Area
- Transportation, History
- Publication Name
- Sober Men and True : Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy, 1900-1945
- Item Length
- 9.2 in
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Subject
- Military / Naval, Europe / Great Britain / General, Ships & Shipbuilding / General
- Publication Year
- 2002
- Type
- Textbook
- Format
- Book, Hardcover
- Language
- English
- Item Height
- 1.4 in
- Item Width
- 6.1 in
- Item Weight
- 22.1 Oz
- Number of Pages
- 300 Pages
About this product
Product Information
The image of the naval sailor is that of an enigmatic but compelling figure, a globe-trotting adventurer, swaggering and irresponsible in port but swift to flex the national muscle at sea and beyond. Appealing as this popular image may be, scant effort has been expended to reveal the truth behind the stereotype. Thanks to Christopher McKee's groundbreaking work, it is now possible to hear from sailors themselves--in this case, those who served in Great Britain's Royal Navy during the first half of the twentieth century. McKee has scoured sailors' unpublished diaries, letters, memoirs, and oral interviews to uncover the lives and secret thoughts of British men of the lower deck. From working-class childhoods teetering on the edge of poverty to the hardships of finding civilian employment after leaving the navy; from sexual initiation in the brothels of Oran and Alexandria to the terror of battle, the former sailors speak with candor about all aspects of naval life: the harsh discipline and deep comradeship, the shipboard homoeroticism, the pleasures and temptations of world travel, and the responsibilities of marriage and family. McKee has shaped the first authentic model of the naval enlisted experience, an account not crafted by officers or civilian reformers but deftly told in the sailors' own voices. The result is a poignant and complex portrait of lower-deck lives.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Harvard University Press
ISBN-10
0674007360
ISBN-13
9780674007369
eBay Product ID (ePID)
2182128
Product Key Features
Publication Name
Sober Men and True : Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy, 1900-1945
Format
Book, Hardcover
Language
English
Subject
Military / Naval, Europe / Great Britain / General, Ships & Shipbuilding / General
Publication Year
2002
Type
Textbook
Subject Area
Transportation, History
Number of Pages
300 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
9.2 in
Item Height
1.4 in
Item Width
6.1 in
Item Weight
22.1 Oz
Additional Product Features
LCCN
2001-051922
Intended Audience
Scholarly & Professional
Lc Classification Number
V737.M35 2002
Reviews
There is much to lure even the novice in naval history. The voices for one. They spill from diaries, letters, memoirs, questionnaires, and an archive of taped interviews in London's Imperial War Museum. Christopher McKee uses each to bring the "lower deck" alive. The seaman talk of everything, from what they ate and wore and gambled to the pleasures of shore leave, the panic of wartime, the plague of officers., McKee's cumulative portrait shows the danger, boredom (and ways of combating it), camaraderie, discipline, diet, and many other mundane details of a sailor's life that are rarely encountered in the romantic renderings of fiction. Vivid and full of personality, this portrait of life below decks during the first half of the last century is very readable and is recommended., There is much more to this book than initially meets the eye...It is the only real attempt I have read to look into sailors' lives and to bring out their backgrounds, their true feelings, their thoughts on their officers, teamwork, war fighting, discipline, drink, the run ashore, and many other aspects that can only be fully understood if you are part of the lower deck. And it makes fascinating reading--all the more so because, as the book progresses, the theme is absolutely clear--sailors' lives, their thoughts, feelings and aspirations are very much the same now as they were then... Sober Men and True is full of gems...[It is] a thoroughly entertaining read [and] has serious lessons for us all that are always worth revisiting., It is not ships but men that make a navy, observed one great British admiral. In Sober Men and True , Christopher McKee brings to life the men who made the Royal Navy such a success. Their success was built on professionalism, courage, commitment and loyalty, human qualities that can best be understood through McKee's brilliant analysis., This beautifully written and engaging reconstruction of the 'inner worlds' of British naval ratings in the first half of the twentieth century will delight and entertain. A tour de force !, Sober Men and True recounts the lives of the enlisted men who served in Britain's Royal Navy from the dreadnought era through World War II, from Gallipoli and Jutland to Taranto and Normandy. With his characteristic diligence, keen insight and superb literary grace, Christopher McKee brings to pulsating life a maritime society of working-class men that has now disappeared. He honors these British naval ratings and demonstrates that the Royal Navy was truly blessed to have such steady hearts of oak beating below decks in its last days of imperial majesty. His glowing and humane achievement will be deeply appreciated., McKee's elegantly written history of travel and tradition, rum and religion, skylarking and sex, and combat and comradeship, provides the reader with multi-dimensional and iconoclastic portraits of British seamen during the dreadnought era., An evocative portrait of a unique and now vanished society. McKee has brought this world to life in an insightful and fascinating manner., There is much more to this book than initially meets the eye...It is the only real attempt I have read to look into sailors' lives and to bring out their backgrounds, their true feelings, their thoughts on their officers, teamwork, war fighting, discipline, drink, the run ashore, and many other aspects that can only be fully understood if you are part of the lower deck. And it makes fascinating reading--all the more so because, as the book progresses, the theme is absolutely clear--sailors' lives, their thoughts, feelings and aspirations are very much the same now as they were then...Sober Men and True is full of gems...[It is] a thoroughly entertaining read [and] has serious lessons for us all that are always worth revisiting., A meticulously researched look at the lives of sailors serving in the British Royal Navy during the first half of the 20th century. McKee...here paints a portrait that contravenes commonly held stereotypes about enlisted sailors. Such stereotypes, he argues, are generally drawn from either formal military histories written by officers and academics or from the visions of novelists and filmmakers...Rather than rely on traditional military histories, he makes use of the diaries, letters, memoirs, questionnaires, and taped recollections of the former sailors themselves. These documents reveal a decidedly monotonous and often dangerous shipboard existence. Interweaving conventional history and detailed enumeration of naval regulations into the sailors' own anecdotes, McKee captures the tension endemic on ships where public routine governed every moment of the day...Particularly appealing to those concerned with naval history, but written in vivid prose that will sustain the interest of more general readers as well., A vivid recreation of lower-deck life, full of psychological insights. We have had so little real social history of the 20th-century Royal Navy, that this will open up completely new vistas.
Table of Content
Introduction: Jack's Wrong Image 1. I Went Away to Join the Navy 2. They Were Officers and You Were Not 3. The Finest and Most Sincere Crowd of Men 4. I Never Thought I'd See Daylight Again 5. This Rum It Was Wonderful Stuff 6. A Sailor's Paradise 7. Traveling with an Oar on My Shoulder Appendix 1: Ratings in the Royal Navy, 1914 Appendix 2: Ratings in the Royal Navy, 1943 Appendix 3: Daily Standard Naval Rations, 1914 Informants for Sober Men and True Abbreviations Notes Acknowledgments Index
Copyright Date
2002
Dewey Decimal
359/.00941/0904
Dewey Edition
21
Illustrated
Yes
Item description from the seller
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Alibris, Inc.
Rob Lambert
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eBay item number:403987447751
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Sparks, Nevada, United States
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