What we're reading: June 2025
This month at the Defence Research Network, we've been reading two powerful books that explore the personal and political dimensions of wartime experience.
Making Sense of the Great War by Alex Mayhew challenges familiar narratives of the Western Front by revealing how English soldiers made meaning of crisis and endurance amid the horrors of industrial warfare.
Women’s Roles in Times of War and Political Violence, by Inga B. Kuźma and Edyta B. Pietrzak, turns our attention to the politicisation of women’s wartime experiences in Central and Eastern Europe, exposing how memory, silence, and resistance shape public discourse.
Together, these books offer fresh insights into how individuals live through and make sense of violence and conflict.
Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness, and Morale on the Western Front
by Alex Mayhew
This new book examines how English infantrymen made sense of their experiences during the First World War, challenging the common image of trench warfare as solely defined by futility and despair. Focusing on key crisis moments in 1914, 1916, and 1917–18, it explores how soldiers drew on their environments, social bonds, and inner resources to endure the trauma of industrialised conflict and construct meaningful interpretations of their service.
Women’s Roles in Times of War and Political Violence: Reclaiming Herstory
By Inga B. Kuźma, Edyta B. Pietrzak
This new book looks at the socio-political construction of collective memory surrounding women’s experiences of war and political violence, with a particular focus on Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on memoirs, testimonies, and cultural narratives, it explores how public discourse reflects, politicises, and often distorts women’s roles in conflict. The book reveals how stereotypes are weaponised and how women navigate, resist, or reclaim narratives shaped by political agendas and societal silence.
