WEBVTT 1 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:22.079 Hello, and welcome to Western SIEV. In this bonus author interview, I 2 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:27.120 sit down with return guest historian Andrew Pedigree, and we talk about his most 3 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:32.719 recent book, happily titled The Book at War. The Book at War is 4 00:00:32.840 --> 00:00:38.000 a stunningly in depth look at the rule that literature, the novel, the 5 00:00:38.039 --> 00:00:44.560 book, the scientific journal, has played in our greatest conflicts in human history. 6 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:50.600 And not only that, he delves into how books have served as tools 7 00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:57.399 of war, both during the conflict and in the years leading up. As 8 00:00:57.439 --> 00:01:02.320 always, the links are in the show note if you would like to purchase 9 00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:06.519 a copy of the book, which I encourage you to do. I've also 10 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:11.799 included a link to my previous interview with historian Pedigree and a link to his 11 00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:17.519 previous book, because they are, as you'll find out in the interview, 12 00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:37.719 somewhat connected. And welcome back, and I'm sitting down here with historian Andrew 13 00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:42.799 Pedigree. We are talking about his most recent book, The Book at War, 14 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:48.519 and it's a fascinating story and a look at the interesting ways that books 15 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:53.680 and literatures have been a part of some of the most important conflicts in world 16 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.879 history. I want to start out with the idea behind the book, because 17 00:01:57.879 --> 00:02:00.920 a lot of times I will read the press to the book and authors will 18 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:06.799 state their intention, their purpose behind why they're doing this, and I always 19 00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:10.400 think that that's interesting because it gives you an insight into what the historian was 20 00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:15.240 thinking at the time that the idea first struck them. And this is an 21 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:17.599 interesting story, I think, So would you mind enlightening us Why did you 22 00:02:17.639 --> 00:02:23.280 write the book? Well, it won't surprise you that the book started as 23 00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:30.360 something quite different. I was at an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum on 24 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:36.080 how paintings were protected from bombing during World War Two, and I found myself 25 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:38.560 asking, well, what about the books. I mean, Britain had many 26 00:02:38.639 --> 00:02:44.719 wonderful collections of books at the time, and so little attention has been given 27 00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:50.759 compared to the attention given to lost, stolen, or sequestered art, so 28 00:02:50.919 --> 00:02:55.520 little has been given to books. So I began working on the fate of 29 00:02:55.680 --> 00:03:02.879 books in wartime and the destruction of books, particularly by artillery and bombing. 30 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:08.080 And it's a very sad story, and it's often as far as the story 31 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:14.680 gets. But I began to see something much more nuanced in this because it 32 00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:21.319 became increasingly aware that in wartime books are not just victims. They're also protagonists. 33 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:27.000 They spread the ideology ideologies that lead to war in the first place. 34 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:32.080 They provide the justifications and the means with which to fight, and they pour 35 00:03:32.199 --> 00:03:39.520 scorn on the nation's enemies and crow over victories. Book production is totally changed 36 00:03:39.639 --> 00:03:46.199 during wartime, and often with the publishers full consent, particularly in the Total 37 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:53.280 War of the twentieth century. War changed everything. Publishers, authors, academics, 38 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:58.639 teachers, and librarians by and large rallied to the cause. Publishing was 39 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:03.240 transformed books for troops, books for prisoners of war, books for the war 40 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:09.439 industries, books about the war. And they were also changed by the fact 41 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:17.040 that in many cases war entailed a restriction of raw materials. Paper was highly 42 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:21.480 rationed, and at the same time the government was needing more of that paper 43 00:04:21.519 --> 00:04:26.759 for its own purposes. So there were so many changes to the book industry 44 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:32.120 during wartime, and in an era which produced Hitler's Mind Camp, it became 45 00:04:32.199 --> 00:04:39.079 increasingly difficult to argue that books are always a force for good, which is 46 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:44.279 the assumption with which we start whenever we're talking about the fate of the book 47 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:48.279 or the future of libraries. But it's not always so Yeah, I think 48 00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:57.920 I think that that's really interesting and will definitely come back to books as vehicles 49 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:03.319 for ideology, and I think a lot of us can wrap our minds around 50 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:08.600 that idea. But we'll come back to that in a little while. There's 51 00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:12.079 an interesting quotation from the book. I think it's a reflection, if I'm 52 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.879 not mistaken from nineteen forty five quote war modern war at least cannot be fought 53 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:25.000 without the most complete library resources and quote. I don't know that most people, 54 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:29.600 when we think about war, think about books. I think, especially 55 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:33.240 when we think about resources, certainly think about oil, right about iron, 56 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:40.319 think about you know, precious materials and food. All those sorts of things 57 00:05:40.319 --> 00:05:44.360 are things that we think of, but we don't put books in sort of 58 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:48.759 that same category. And as I was going through the book, I kept 59 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:55.079 thinking, I think that's a mistake. How big of a mistake is it 60 00:05:55.199 --> 00:06:00.240 for us to sort of disregard the importance of books, specially in modern warfare? 61 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:08.240 Well, I think in twentieth century warfare, both sides are always trying 62 00:06:08.279 --> 00:06:13.920 to get ahead in terms of science. Now science can only make progress because 63 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:19.759 of literature in peace time, in essence, and in principle, science is 64 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:28.600 international. People feed off each other's discoveries in medicine, in physics, in 65 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:35.920 chemistry as a way of pushing forward scientific frontiers. In wartime the process changes 66 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:44.279 completely. Now it's a matter of trying to make those advances in the development 67 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:49.879 of weaponry, in the development of armament, and in the developer of a 68 00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:56.800 new defensive technologies. Radar is a very good example of that, an offensive 69 00:06:56.920 --> 00:07:04.279 and a defensive technology. So we're left in a situation when scientists community turns, 70 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:12.600 sometimes with reluctance, because scientists are by nature unpolitical animals, when science 71 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:17.360 turns to trying to maximize the advantage their own country is going to have in 72 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:27.639 conflict. And that could be in small incremental changes of artillery scope or that 73 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:30.279 sort of thing, or it could be in fundamental changes like the introduction to 74 00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:36.839 warfare of aircraft, which is probably the most fundamental change of the twentieth century, 75 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:43.399 but also the tank and the submarine, which came to have an enormous 76 00:07:43.399 --> 00:07:48.399 significance in the twentieth century. So of these all of these things need designs. 77 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:58.199 They also need they also need access to a scientific literature that you can 78 00:07:58.279 --> 00:08:03.040 build on and library. Huge technical libraries are developed, particularly in Germany, 79 00:08:03.079 --> 00:08:07.480 and that's because of the strength of their technological and technical universities. They had 80 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:15.399 a huge advantage at the beginning of the twentieth century over the Western allies. 81 00:08:16.079 --> 00:08:20.279 And so war becomes a business which turns the normal polarities of science on its 82 00:08:20.319 --> 00:08:26.079 head, and instead of sharing as widely as possible to get the best minds 83 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:31.759 all working together, it's a matter of trying to discover your opponent's secrets at 84 00:08:31.759 --> 00:08:39.480 the same time as preventing advances in science and physics and chemistry reaching the other 85 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:45.240 side. So it's a very very different way of thinking of things. Yeah, 86 00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:50.240 it's very much moving from a global view of universities and education and scientific 87 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:54.720 progress to a nationalist view of sort of the same thing. I mean, 88 00:08:56.440 --> 00:08:58.399 you know, the more things change, the more things stay the same. 89 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:03.600 We're doing the same right now for superconductor technology when it comes to the United 90 00:09:03.639 --> 00:09:07.440 States and trying to guard some of those secrets from I'll put it in air 91 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:11.759 quotations enemies, and it would be potential enemies. An enemy is something that 92 00:09:11.799 --> 00:09:16.159 you declare. So one of the one of the other things that I really 93 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:22.440 think is interesting about books and about the importance of books in military not just 94 00:09:22.519 --> 00:09:24.200 technology, like we can understand that, but I'm going to come back to 95 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:31.720 it, but also in terms of the quality of the soldier and the quality 96 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:35.440 of the commander who's leading them. I think books play a role there, 97 00:09:35.519 --> 00:09:41.480 and literacy plays a role that sometimes gets discounted. Listeners of the show will 98 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:43.679 remember, you know, recently we had an author on talking about the Franco 99 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:48.000 Prussian War, and one of the advantages that the Prussians had was, you 100 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:54.120 know, particularly their officer corps was more literate. They could they could read 101 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:58.840 messages, they could read and understand the maps. They can act more independently, 102 00:09:58.279 --> 00:10:03.799 you know, when you don't have the capacity to transfer information, you 103 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:09.720 know, using radios and things of that nature. If your front of the 104 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:13.600 line staff is not literate and the other front of the line staff is, 105 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:18.240 that's a major problem for them. And I thought that the part of the 106 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:24.399 book about officer training and the Prussian cadet schools was really interesting. So I 107 00:10:24.440 --> 00:10:26.080 was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about that, because 108 00:10:26.159 --> 00:10:30.480 I saw sort of a tie in between some of the two recent books that 109 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:39.240 I've been looking at well. I think that books of strategy have been around 110 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:43.840 as long as there has been writing. The Art of War by Sunsu is 111 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:52.159 a very famous work of strategic thinking, which was written in the sixth century 112 00:10:52.279 --> 00:10:58.879 BC, but of course it changed incrementally with the invention of printing in around 113 00:11:00.120 --> 00:11:05.240 fourteen fifty. One of the things I do in my daily work is work 114 00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:11.519 on the first two centuries of printing, and we have a collective enterprise called 115 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:16.679 a Universal Short Title Catalog where we list all that and classify it according to 116 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:24.480 genre. And we've so far collected three thousand plus military handbooks printed in the 117 00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:30.240 first two and a half centuries of print, which is astonishing really. But 118 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:33.840 on the other hand, what we're talking about there is books for the gentleman 119 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:39.200 and amateur, if you like, for the colonel who wants to know about 120 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:43.279 the latest tactics, who wants to know about sword play, wants to me 121 00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:50.879 about troop found formations. It's only really with the establishment of these of a 122 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:58.840 professional officer class, which comes in at different points really in the eighteenth and 123 00:11:58.919 --> 00:12:07.000 nineteenth century, very important in the New United States and in Germany, important 124 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:16.639 still in France and Great Britain, but in cultures which still allow a noble 125 00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:20.320 officer class to have very much the upper hand. I think one of the 126 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:30.639 most important influences in the development of military strategy is Napoleon, not necessarily deliberately, 127 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:39.279 but because he was a winner of battles without any equal in the early 128 00:12:39.399 --> 00:12:45.600 nineteenth century, so people started studying Napoleon's tactics, studying his way of making 129 00:12:46.399 --> 00:12:52.399 battlefield war winnable. And that remains the case until these three great victories that 130 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:58.200 the Prussian Army have in the middle of the nineteenth century over Denmark, after 131 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:05.039 over Austria, over over France, and people begin to realize that a new 132 00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:11.240 military superpower has emerged in the continents of Europe, almost by stealth, and 133 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:18.720 so people begin to realize that there's something special about the German waging of war. 134 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:26.679 And I agree with what your other author has to say about the importance 135 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:33.519 of cadet education, but I think in some respects it's as is important for 136 00:13:33.399 --> 00:13:39.200 practical training and s breeder corps. And that's one of the things you notice 137 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:46.799 about the Prussian Army. There's this strong sense of the are leading figures in 138 00:13:46.879 --> 00:13:54.159 a largely militarized society. Prussia was a place where there was compulsory military service 139 00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:58.240 for the whole population, who could then be called back to arms very quickly, 140 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:05.399 in a way that was still slightly regarded with slight suspicion in somewhere where 141 00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:11.639 like England, where people were always afraid that if you had too much army, 142 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:13.960 they'd have too much influence in government, which had to be a civilian 143 00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:22.600 affair. So there was also a different national philosophy underlying what happened when these 144 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:28.600 two countries went to war. Britain was never really a military power in the 145 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:33.840 sense of an army. It had the biggest navy in the world. It's 146 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:39.320 navy in the nineteenth century could take on any two hostile navies, but it 147 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:45.440 didn't have a lot of men under arms on a permanent basis, and that 148 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:50.159 was what showed up in the First World War. Yeah, it's interesting as 149 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:58.200 you're thinking and talking about cadet manuals and things that could be used to educate 150 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:01.759 common soldiers and also tactics things of course I'm thinking of. And the tie 151 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:05.679 in with the Prussians and the Germans is of course Van vn. Steuben, 152 00:15:05.799 --> 00:15:11.240 you know, one of those famous Prussian military commanders comes over to the United 153 00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:13.679 States or what's going to be the United States. You know, it serves 154 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:20.399 with General Washington and you know, rights than the military handbook that is used 155 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:26.039 by the American Armed Forces for for a very long time afterwards. So there 156 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:31.600 was something that the Prussians and then I suppose by the transit of property the 157 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:37.960 Germans sort of figured out maybe before everybody else was able to figure it out. 158 00:15:37.399 --> 00:15:43.240 And I think that that that is really important and relevant to analyzing just 159 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:48.559 how important books are to the ability to fight war, but they're also important 160 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:58.759 in changing public attitudes and driving nations towards war just as important. And the 161 00:15:58.799 --> 00:16:00.080 book that you talk about, and that is a book that's going to be 162 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:04.200 familiar to a lot of my audience, especially my American audience that went to 163 00:16:04.279 --> 00:16:10.080 American public schools. I'm talking about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Uncle Tom's Cabin a 164 00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:18.480 critical, critically influential book in really lighting the fires of the American Civil War. 165 00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:21.480 But as you kind of point out in the book, it's in ways 166 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:26.320 that are a little bit more nuanced than I think maybe oftentimes is taught. 167 00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:29.759 So what could you tell me about that? I thought that was really interesting 168 00:16:29.799 --> 00:16:33.080 because most Americans think of it as like, this is a book that's hyper 169 00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:41.799 critical of slavery, and it gins up this intense abolitionist feeling in the North. 170 00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:45.320 And the picture is a little bit more nuanced than that, isn't it. 171 00:16:45.799 --> 00:16:55.759 Yeah, Yes, it's a marvelus story that when Beachi Stowe goes to 172 00:16:56.240 --> 00:17:00.399 the White House, she meets the president, President Lincoln, who says to 173 00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:07.640 her, is this a little woman who made this great war? What better 174 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:12.920 you might think? What better representation could you have with books as as influential 175 00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:18.319 in war making. The only problem is is that this seems to be a 176 00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:25.559 story which was invented by the author's family and only appears in accounts after her 177 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:29.960 death. We know she went to have tea at the White House with Missus 178 00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:34.640 Lincoln. We we know she she may have met the President, but this 179 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:45.960 particular exchange didn't necessarily occur. And I think the connection between Uncle Tom's cabin 180 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:53.279 and abolitionism is much harder to make. For one thing, we know that 181 00:17:53.440 --> 00:18:00.440 Northern troops did not sign up to abolish slavery. That was not their first 182 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:11.039 priority. When surveys were done of troop attitudes, their detestation of Southerners emanated 183 00:18:11.160 --> 00:18:18.039 more from a need to defend the United States and the Constitution and the principle 184 00:18:18.119 --> 00:18:22.720 of fair play and justice. The result of elections, however, well unwelcome, 185 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:27.440 has to be observed, and many felt if the Union did not prevail 186 00:18:27.559 --> 00:18:33.400 in this war, the United States, the great experiment of democracy, might 187 00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:38.240 be exposed as a failure with consequences that would resonate around the world. So 188 00:18:38.279 --> 00:18:45.440 it was much more about upholding the United States as a principle than it was 189 00:18:45.720 --> 00:18:56.960 about abolition. And indeed, when Lincoln issued his emancipation Proclamation later in the 190 00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:00.160 war, that was very divisive in the army, a great number of people 191 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:07.119 didn't agree with it. I think the most immediate importance of Uncle Tom's cabin 192 00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:15.319 is in enforcing in the South a sense that they're northern Netherlers, their northern 193 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:22.160 neighbors would never tolerate slavery for much longer. And that's why I think when 194 00:19:22.200 --> 00:19:30.400 Lincoln was elected, they were not prepared to receive any assurances from him about 195 00:19:30.440 --> 00:19:34.319 their future, and why secession began so very quickly. Yeah, I think 196 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:37.440 that there's something critical here. So first of all, it is kind of 197 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:41.920 it is very important, and this is a struggle even when when when I 198 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:47.640 teach the Civil War here today, because on the one hand, you know, 199 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:51.039 the simple answer is what's what What was the cause of the American Civil 200 00:19:51.079 --> 00:19:55.519 War? And the answer you could give is slavery, and it wouldn't necessarily 201 00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:02.799 be wrong, but it's it's from whose person perspective are we talking about here? 202 00:20:03.240 --> 00:20:07.519 And Uncle Tom's cabin plays a big part of this. The Liberator, 203 00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:14.000 which is an important abolitionist newsletter William Lawyer Garrison coming out of Boston, is 204 00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:18.079 important. But what this really does is, and you're one hundred percent right, 205 00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:26.920 is it galvanizes the South into this position of a refusal to compromise. 206 00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:30.519 Whereas in the past, you know, the United States had gone through this 207 00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:36.000 period of We're going to continue to compromise on the expansion of slavery. But 208 00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:40.680 the attitude has very much changed. And there's others other events that play a 209 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:44.480 part in that. Certainly the Harper's Very incident and other things as well are 210 00:20:44.519 --> 00:20:53.079 important. But this notion that the North has become these fire breathing radicals is 211 00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:59.559 something that literature helps to instill in the South. So when you look at 212 00:20:59.559 --> 00:21:03.799 the South and constitutions and Declarations of Independence. Yes, it's clear they're they're 213 00:21:03.960 --> 00:21:10.000 seceding to protect slavery. But the Northern troops who go to war early on 214 00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:14.559 and the Northern states who agree to fight those those battles are doing it to 215 00:21:14.599 --> 00:21:18.200 preserve the union. They're not doing it because of slavery. So it's it's 216 00:21:18.200 --> 00:21:23.400 a really interesting part of the book that I really enjoyed because I like how 217 00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:26.920 it does debunk the myth, and I like that you brought up the story, 218 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:32.880 by the way to the story that is totally almost certainly fabricated. I 219 00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:36.680 mean, of course we can't can't say that with one hundred percent certainty, 220 00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:40.920 but it seems very likely that it is. Another part of the book that 221 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:47.079 I liked was the role that print media plays in how should I say, 222 00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:52.680 instilling the patriotism necessary to get people to sign up, Like it's it's all 223 00:21:52.720 --> 00:22:00.599 well and good, you know, to gin up animosity towards your towards the 224 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:07.319 opponents, but it's quite another thing to get those individuals to get a rifle 225 00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:12.160 in hand and to wear the uniform and to march off to battle. Books 226 00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:18.200 play a really interesting role in that process, especially before introduction of mass media. 227 00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:22.359 Television and so on and so forth. So I was wondering if you 228 00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:25.000 could talk about that for a moment, because I really enjoyed that part of 229 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:30.200 the book. Yeah. I think the lesson I took from that element of 230 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:37.720 the research was that the best propaganda is not written as propaganda. It's just 231 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:45.839 fed into ordinary day existence as normal reading, fair and looking at it from 232 00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:48.400 the point of view of Britain in the nineteenth century, which was, by 233 00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:56.000 father the biggest economy until it was overtaken by the United States, we have 234 00:22:56.160 --> 00:23:03.640 things like Tom Brown's School Days, Thomas Hughes's novel which has this exemplary sort 235 00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:10.839 of strong Christian inspired Young Gentleman, which was one of the most successful books 236 00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:18.400 of the era. More and more we have The Boy's Own Paper, which 237 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:26.680 was a weekly paper which achieved what you would think nowadays would be the impossible, 238 00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:30.839 and that was that it was loved by boys, but approved of by 239 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:36.839 their teachers and their parents as well, which meant that this Boy's Owned Paper 240 00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:41.440 could appear not only in the drawing rooms of the English middle classes, but 241 00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:48.000 it could also be taken by the public libraries and then read more widely as 242 00:23:48.039 --> 00:23:52.519 well. Between the first and the Second World War, we get all the 243 00:23:52.880 --> 00:24:00.359 stories of escape from German prisoner of war camps, which enormously popular, and 244 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:07.359 of course the adventures of Biggles the First World War and thereafter flier Who Who's 245 00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:15.480 Who was read by I think generations, which is why the RAF found it 246 00:24:15.599 --> 00:24:19.599 so much easier to recruit in the Second World War than the other two services, 247 00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:23.920 because it was by far the most romantic after three. And I can 248 00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:30.240 tell you that when I was growing up, I inherited my my, my 249 00:24:32.039 --> 00:24:36.920 uncle's supply of Biggles Adventures, so I read my way through most of them 250 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:41.759 myself. And what what what all this brings out is that there is a 251 00:24:41.799 --> 00:24:52.359 sort of natural conservatism in in adolescents who want to succeed in society as it 252 00:24:52.519 --> 00:24:59.079 is, rather to fit in, rather than to change society. And I 253 00:24:59.079 --> 00:25:03.440 think you can see that in all of this literature, which particularly in the 254 00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:10.920 in the British Empire was it was presenting a view of the Brits a strong, 255 00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:17.160 just fair and brave, and that's how school boys wanted to be. 256 00:25:18.519 --> 00:25:22.079 That's that's really interesting. And you know, I also just can't think. 257 00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:27.599 I also think back to all quite on the Western Front that book, and 258 00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:32.200 then you know, the original movie version, you know, is very you 259 00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:36.599 know, it shows the German schoolboys, you know, celebrating the idea of 260 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:41.160 going off to war and been reading, and their teachers are preaching this idea. 261 00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:45.480 And so it's just books work in sort of an overlapping magnifier sense. 262 00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:52.640 You know. I did my thesis college was on Shakespeare. And you know, 263 00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:59.200 when I think patriotism in war, you know, my mind inextricably turns 264 00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:03.359 to Henry the Fifth and the Saint Crispin's Day speech. It's the it's the 265 00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:08.079 it's the rallying cry, you know, to to beat those pesky French again 266 00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:14.519 back, and as well, it's a fantastic speech. I mean, don't 267 00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:17.599 don't get me wrong, I always love to read it, but it's it's 268 00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:25.799 it's interesting to see that play sometimes performed as this patriotic battle because the book 269 00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:27.000 begins the play, excuse me begins. I know, it's not a book, 270 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:30.640 so we're kind of going off object here, but it begins with, 271 00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:33.519 I would say, a very much more cynical view of war. You know, 272 00:26:33.599 --> 00:26:37.160 you have the two church officials and I can't recall their titles from now, 273 00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:41.519 who are sort of essentially saying, well, we need to encourage this 274 00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:44.960 new king to attack France. We don't want to look at our at our 275 00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:48.960 books, because you know, we haven't been the most upstanding. And so 276 00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:52.319 if you sort of look at the play from the beginning, it's it's a 277 00:26:52.400 --> 00:27:00.079 much more cynical view of warfare, but it often gets portray in a way 278 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:07.599 that's very patriotic. And I wonder about books and about some of these print 279 00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:11.400 media things, and this is this this question is definitely taking us a little 280 00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:14.079 bit further afield than the subject matter of the book. But I wanted to 281 00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:18.720 get your opinion on it nonetheless of you know, can we change the way 282 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:23.000 that the book or the play or whatever was intended to be presented by how 283 00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:27.119 we view it, by how we port how we choose to present it. 284 00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:30.279 I don't know, what do you think about that? Sometimes I wonder when 285 00:27:30.279 --> 00:27:37.880 I read that play, well, you've actually sort of brought just to one 286 00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:41.599 of my favorite scenes in Shakespeare when Henry the faces at his court and he 287 00:27:41.640 --> 00:27:45.799 said, tell me, Archbishop, would I be justified in going to invade 288 00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:48.519 France? It's oh, yes, yes, sir, And it gives a 289 00:27:48.519 --> 00:27:53.160 long speech about it, and it just brought home to me how how much 290 00:27:53.319 --> 00:28:00.200 political thought from that period is basically telling rulers what they want to hear and 291 00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:03.599 giving them justifications for what they want to do. I think we can sort 292 00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:07.359 of link together in the way Henry the Fifth and earned all quiet on the 293 00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:15.759 Western Front because all quite on the rest in Front. Brilliant book and a 294 00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:21.200 brilliant film. I saw the black and white version when it first came came 295 00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:26.119 out, and it makes clear that the sort of sheer brutality and I think 296 00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:30.319 remark was making the point the sheer pointlessness of war. But this was a 297 00:28:30.799 --> 00:28:40.400 view which only began promote being promoted in literature in about nineteen twenty nine to 298 00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:45.400 nineteen thirty two, when there was this glut of memoirs on both sides of 299 00:28:45.400 --> 00:28:52.559 the conflict pointing out the sort of rather pointless lot of lies, the slaughter 300 00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:56.799 on the Western Front, of which it must be said much of the home 301 00:28:56.839 --> 00:29:00.519 population was totally unaware during the war, accept in so far as their own 302 00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:10.720 children came back maimed or were killed. Because at the time, if you 303 00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:17.480 look at the poetry of the war written during the war, it was ninety 304 00:29:17.559 --> 00:29:22.720 five percent in favor of the fighting. It was deeply patriotic and in Britain 305 00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:27.240 Journey something like seventy percent of it was written by women who were they, 306 00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:33.119 you know, by by far in that respect, the strongest supporters of the 307 00:29:33.160 --> 00:29:40.799 war, and made life very uncomfortable for conscientious objectors and others who might have 308 00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:45.200 misgivings about the war. If we come back to Henry the Fifth, it's 309 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:52.240 worth remembering that the great film of Henry the Fifth with Lawrence Olivier, was 310 00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:56.519 first shown in nineteen forty four. It was a war film, and it 311 00:29:56.559 --> 00:30:00.920 was deliberately created to provide the view view of the British, as they liked 312 00:30:00.920 --> 00:30:06.160 to think of themselves, the plucky underdog, although we were one of the 313 00:30:06.200 --> 00:30:10.759 great military and naval powers in the world, and here you have this small 314 00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:19.920 army of humble archers up against the might of the French nobility, coming through 315 00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:23.119 against the odds. And that was meant, I think, to be a 316 00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:33.200 sort of proverbial rendering of Britain alone in nineteen forty against the ever triumphant Germany. 317 00:30:33.799 --> 00:30:40.519 And I suppose by forty four it was a sort of celebration of that 318 00:30:40.759 --> 00:30:45.400 image, even though everybody already in Britain already knew that there would be a 319 00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:53.240 terrible cost to be paid for this war in terms of economic strength and future 320 00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:56.880 world's role. I'm glad that you brought that up, because I always always 321 00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:00.440 bring that up to students, that that film came out in nineteen forty four, 322 00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:07.000 and that that's not that's not a mistake, that's that is one hundred 323 00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:12.759 percent an intentional decision. And a way to try to you know this is 324 00:31:12.799 --> 00:31:17.920 this is the traditional waving of the flag. You know, much in the 325 00:31:17.960 --> 00:31:19.680 same way that you know in the United States, we tend to go back 326 00:31:19.720 --> 00:31:23.519 to our founding documents and the Declaration of Independence and all of these sorts of 327 00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:29.519 things when whenever we need to do that sort of patriotic fervor. But I 328 00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:32.359 want to go back to a topic that we kind of hinted at at the 329 00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:34.880 beginning of this conversation, and this is the part that I think people can 330 00:31:34.920 --> 00:31:38.160 wrap their mind around. But as much as you can wrap your mind around 331 00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:41.920 it, I don't think we give it the credit that it deserves. And 332 00:31:41.960 --> 00:31:48.559 that is the extent to which books and the production of knowledge win wars because 333 00:31:48.799 --> 00:31:56.319 of technical knowledge. It's not about once I mean, once we get past 334 00:31:57.440 --> 00:32:00.440 I'll say, perhaps the Napoleonic Wars, but maybe we need to go back 335 00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:07.000 further. But once we get past that point, it's no longer necessarily about 336 00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:13.160 who has the most men anymore. Now it becomes much more about who has 337 00:32:13.559 --> 00:32:17.160 the most up to date military technology, and the person that has the most 338 00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:22.799 up to date military technology is going to win the war. So I would 339 00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:28.400 argue, and I'll ask your opinion on this, that books, particularly scientific 340 00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:34.039 treatises, and which are treated as state secrets during these wars, you play 341 00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:38.440 just as much of a role of winning the war than your strongest general on 342 00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:42.319 the field. What do you think about that? I maybe went too far. 343 00:32:44.519 --> 00:32:47.799 I think that's very important. You can take that back in some respects 344 00:32:47.839 --> 00:32:55.599 almost to the to the beginning of the print era, when when Portuguese sailors 345 00:32:55.720 --> 00:33:01.279 or Spanish sailors or Dutch sailors went on voyages of discovery. On their return 346 00:33:02.039 --> 00:33:08.799 they were required to give over their log books and any topographical maps they had 347 00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:15.359 drawn and charts to their employers. It was not theirs to keep because these 348 00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:22.400 two were regarded as state secrets. There's a long, long tradition of science 349 00:33:22.799 --> 00:33:30.359 as secret particularly the science of war in the Second World War. This is 350 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:35.680 actually a very difficult part of the book to write because scientists who have talked 351 00:33:35.720 --> 00:33:38.720 about their role in the war, the inventions that they had to produce, 352 00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:45.559 and so on and so forth, they don't put themselves in libraries very often, 353 00:33:46.359 --> 00:33:52.279 and it's hard to have them to find talking about libraries because I think 354 00:33:53.160 --> 00:34:00.799 to science, literature is so much of a given, and particularly periodical literature, 355 00:34:01.039 --> 00:34:06.000 scientific journals. And this was realized right at the beginning of the twentieth 356 00:34:06.039 --> 00:34:13.519 century, when both in England and Germany there were efforts to digest all the 357 00:34:13.639 --> 00:34:20.159 foreign periodicals that were taken by different institutions into a central catalog. So if 358 00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:28.440 you needed a particular Swedish physics periodical, you would know which institutions in your 359 00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:31.880 country owned it. And there was a sense that Germany had a great advantage 360 00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:37.920 in this, which was eroded during the Weimar period because of the collapse of 361 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:43.559 the German currency and most German libraries ended up canceling a lot of scientific periodicals. 362 00:34:44.159 --> 00:34:49.280 So you occasionally find scientists in their memoirs saying, oh, yes, 363 00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:55.079 and I've found the solution to this particular problem in a very obscure Russian periodical. 364 00:34:55.480 --> 00:35:00.119 And I think they say that as much to let you know that they 365 00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:07.199 read Russian, rather than because this was a particularly unusual event. But the 366 00:35:07.239 --> 00:35:14.800 Americans, but then the supply of periodicals, current periodicals from from Germany and 367 00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:22.800 Italy, drew up, dried up completely. So in America they passed an 368 00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:31.840 act where the copyright of enemy combatant nations was canceled, so they took it 369 00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:38.360 upon themselves the right to reprint copies of foreign periodicals, which they then distributed 370 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:46.440 to university libraries and laboratories. And of course, the Second World War in 371 00:35:46.440 --> 00:35:54.679 that respect was really important for American science because the universities which until the Second 372 00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:00.679 World War not a lot of Americans had read, no had had won Nobel 373 00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:06.920 prizes. Germany was very much in the lead in that respect. But with 374 00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:12.840 the Second World War and the American government's total dependence on places like Harvard and 375 00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:23.360 Yale and Stanford and Berkeley for scientific libraries and labs full of highly qualified people, 376 00:36:23.840 --> 00:36:30.199 labs even fuller, it must be said, because the Germans decided to 377 00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:38.599 expel Jewish scientists from academic professions, an enormous own goal in terms of what 378 00:36:38.760 --> 00:36:45.719 might have been particularly for the atom bomb, if Germany had not expelled all 379 00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:51.119 of its physicists. But there is a moment, I think in nineteen forty 380 00:36:51.159 --> 00:36:58.119 two the British and Americans were very worried about Germany getting to the atom bomb 381 00:36:58.199 --> 00:37:01.679 first. But there was a moment when one scientist realizes they've given up their 382 00:37:01.719 --> 00:37:08.320 research into atomic technology. And this is through a volume which listed all the 383 00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:14.760 physics lectures which were going on in different German universities, and the fact that 384 00:37:14.800 --> 00:37:17.800 all the people who might have been contributing to atomic science, we're just teaching 385 00:37:17.840 --> 00:37:22.480 their normal lectures gave the game away that they were no longer in competition for 386 00:37:22.519 --> 00:37:28.039 this, and in fact they'd put all their efforts into this rocket technology, 387 00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:36.119 which led to the V two rocket, which was incredibly effective piece of war 388 00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:39.480 making, but just too late in the war to make a difference. The 389 00:37:39.519 --> 00:37:44.960 other place where print is very important, of course, is in intelligence. 390 00:37:45.639 --> 00:37:51.760 Intelligence too had a complete change in the Second World War. We move on 391 00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:59.119 from spies and interrogations to what was known as open source intelligence. That is 392 00:37:59.159 --> 00:38:05.239 the idea that you get there's much information about your adversaries simply by reading newspapers 393 00:38:05.400 --> 00:38:12.840 and telephone directories and annual reports, as you do from anything a spy can 394 00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:20.840 provide. Spies play remarkably little influence in the Second World War, notwithstanding the 395 00:38:20.880 --> 00:38:27.320 amount of anxiety and rumors they created in populations that a spy was around the 396 00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:34.039 corner. But actually it's this open source intelligence and the creation in consequence of 397 00:38:34.199 --> 00:38:42.559 huge card indexes of knowledge by the various intelligence agencies. It's interesting. I 398 00:38:43.079 --> 00:38:47.159 never thought about that, but you know, the United States. One of 399 00:38:47.159 --> 00:38:52.559 the reasons it becomes, you know, the world superpower after World War Two 400 00:38:52.639 --> 00:38:57.159 is yeah, I mean, it's intellectual institutions take off to an extent that 401 00:38:57.800 --> 00:39:02.119 would not have been possible. And you're very It's worth always pointing out that 402 00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:07.119 one of the great weaknesses of the Nazi ideology, and there were many, 403 00:39:07.639 --> 00:39:14.480 but one of the great weaknesses was to ignore the potential contributions of people who 404 00:39:14.519 --> 00:39:21.400 did not fit in their vision of the world going forward. We can only 405 00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:29.000 be too thankful sitting here today that they were tremendously biased. Otherwise some of 406 00:39:29.039 --> 00:39:32.440 those scientists may have well stayed in Germany and the world may have been a 407 00:39:32.519 --> 00:39:37.599 very different place. Well, I want to ask a question that I think 408 00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:44.360 it just isn't obvious enough, And that is the transition to paperbacks and how 409 00:39:44.360 --> 00:39:51.199 that influences were because if you talk about if you talk about how soldiers are 410 00:39:51.239 --> 00:39:52.760 going to be reading at the front lines and stuff, and then you look 411 00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:55.360 at your bookshelf, if those of you who are at home right now look 412 00:39:55.400 --> 00:39:59.159 at your bookshelf and you think, well, how am I going to get 413 00:39:59.159 --> 00:40:06.039 that huge hardcover book? You know, overseas to these individuals like this isn't 414 00:40:06.079 --> 00:40:08.199 going to work. But then you look at your little Penguin paperback you think, 415 00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:12.320 Okay, well this is this is doable. And you point out in 416 00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:19.559 the book how the warplays a really interesting role in the transition to the paperback 417 00:40:20.159 --> 00:40:24.599 and to how those technologies and the way that they almost even the business model 418 00:40:24.599 --> 00:40:28.800 works develops. And I think that's really interesting. So if you wouldn't mind 419 00:40:29.039 --> 00:40:32.280 talking about that, I really thought that was kind of neat. Neat, 420 00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:36.639 Yeah, I mean, I think the invention of the paperback is the most 421 00:40:36.679 --> 00:40:44.039 significant transformation of print culture since fourteen fifty and it came at just the right 422 00:40:44.119 --> 00:40:47.400 moment. I mean, if you compare books for the troops in World War 423 00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:52.400 One and World War two. World War One, it consists of rummaging around 424 00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:57.280 in your cupboard to find things that can be sent off, which will be 425 00:40:57.360 --> 00:41:05.480 hardback books or magazines. Fifty of this was totally unsuitable. What you even 426 00:41:05.559 --> 00:41:09.960 of what was reckoned to be suitable. It was the tastes of middle class 427 00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:17.280 households being sent to be read by on the whole working class troops. So 428 00:41:17.599 --> 00:41:23.119 it didn't work at all. Well, Penguin and the paperback came along at 429 00:41:23.199 --> 00:41:29.639 just the right time nineteen thirty five when Penguin Books got going and they had 430 00:41:29.639 --> 00:41:32.800 a few good years before the war, which meant in Britain that they got 431 00:41:32.920 --> 00:41:38.639 a tremendously good deal in terms of the paper rush. So they were able 432 00:41:38.679 --> 00:41:44.639 to put these six Mani books out into the public domain, which people regarded 433 00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:50.800 as disposable six months the cost of a packet of cigarettes, and so they 434 00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:53.679 could read a book and then pass it on, or they could just throw 435 00:41:53.679 --> 00:42:00.800 it away. And if you get I've begun collecting these wartime paperbacks when I 436 00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:07.760 was working on this project, and many of them have a little notices which 437 00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:10.320 says, when you finish this book, do take it along to the post 438 00:42:10.360 --> 00:42:14.599 office and it can be sent to a member of the forces, who wants 439 00:42:14.639 --> 00:42:20.199 to read this book? And it's true. Penguins had an enormous impact. 440 00:42:20.199 --> 00:42:24.679 You could easily carry them in your trouser pocket when you were on the front 441 00:42:24.760 --> 00:42:30.760 line. And the Americans came up with an even more brilliant alternative, which 442 00:42:30.800 --> 00:42:38.760 were the American Services Editions, which were books, mostly novels which would appeal 443 00:42:38.920 --> 00:42:45.559 to the gi which were distributed in over one hundred million copies of something like 444 00:42:45.599 --> 00:42:52.119 a thousand copies thousand titles, and they were distributed free of charge to serving 445 00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:59.599 soldiers, and they too would fit in the trouser pocket. So all in 446 00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:02.360 all areas, whether it was the prisoner's war camp or on the home front. 447 00:43:04.679 --> 00:43:09.760 Urban dwellers in Britain would put a few paperbacks into their emergency bag if 448 00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:15.440 they had to go down to the Air Aid shelter or were bombed out of 449 00:43:15.480 --> 00:43:20.719 their house. So an enormous impact. And of course it was a change 450 00:43:21.119 --> 00:43:24.360 which was not going backwards, and it was a real challenge to the public 451 00:43:24.440 --> 00:43:32.360 library because paperbacks, particularly these wartime paperbacks, began to disintegrate after let's say 452 00:43:32.360 --> 00:43:37.519 twenty readings, and so they weren't really suitable for the public library who were 453 00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:45.199 forced to continue to pay about eighteen times as much for a new hardback as 454 00:43:45.239 --> 00:43:47.760 they'd be paying for a paperback. So it was one of the things which 455 00:43:49.400 --> 00:43:55.679 sent public libraries on their trajectory out of the mainstream life of readers. And 456 00:43:55.719 --> 00:44:00.280 by the way, that's a great segue into the reality that you've written another 457 00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:04.440 book about the history of the library, which we did on this show and 458 00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:07.639 talked about so and we talked about paperback. So if you would, if 459 00:44:07.639 --> 00:44:12.000 you're interested, to go back and listen to that interview, I'll put the 460 00:44:12.039 --> 00:44:14.880 link back to that one in the show notes, and I'll put the link 461 00:44:14.920 --> 00:44:16.559 to the library book and the show notes too, because you can pick that 462 00:44:16.559 --> 00:44:20.199 one up. In fact, they would make a great one two purchase. 463 00:44:20.880 --> 00:44:23.760 As we start to slowly transition in the fall into the holiday season that comes 464 00:44:23.800 --> 00:44:27.239 after that, well, we're just about a time here. But I want 465 00:44:27.239 --> 00:44:30.880 to ask one last question if I may, and that question is I was 466 00:44:30.920 --> 00:44:37.039 really interested in the statistic that I saw in the book that forty percent of 467 00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:42.480 those polled who were not soldiers. Okay, so people who are not at 468 00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:46.199 the front line, so we're talking about civilians read less during wartime. Yet 469 00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:52.000 books were eagerly consumed by soldiers at the front. So it's really and I 470 00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:54.440 don't know if we have an answer to this question, because you know, 471 00:44:54.440 --> 00:44:57.840 whenever you ask a question of like, well, what did people think, 472 00:44:58.079 --> 00:45:02.360 you know, that's a difficult wrote a. But if there's an answer, 473 00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:07.079 I'm kind of curious as to what it is because it seems like such an 474 00:45:07.119 --> 00:45:12.119 interesting statistic to me. Well, I think the key here is the complete 475 00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:15.440 revolution in female participation of the war. In the war which came with the 476 00:45:15.480 --> 00:45:21.800 Second World War in Britain, and this survey took place in Britain. Women 477 00:45:21.880 --> 00:45:28.440 were either conscripted to work in munitions factories, on farms or in the forces, 478 00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:31.440 the sort of work which was exhausting and took up the whole day, 479 00:45:32.320 --> 00:45:37.719 or many did voluntary work at home. They went and worked in restaurants or 480 00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:45.400 kitchens for the troops, or raised money in shops. Women were just more 481 00:45:45.480 --> 00:45:52.000 busy. And then there were the families that had normally had domestic help a 482 00:45:52.039 --> 00:45:55.800 cook or a maid or a gardener, and though they all went off to 483 00:45:55.800 --> 00:46:00.800 get more lucrative jobs in war work. So I think that also made a 484 00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:07.079 huge difference that the amount of women authors or women readers who had help in 485 00:46:07.119 --> 00:46:15.320 the house went down precipitously. And then you added into that the experience of 486 00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:22.440 nineteen forty in the blitz, and certainly in nineteen forty a lot of people 487 00:46:22.480 --> 00:46:30.280 in their diaries reported having read so much less because they were simply to traumatize 488 00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:35.840 and traumatize and anxious to read. So there's an awful lot of reasons why 489 00:46:36.039 --> 00:46:39.880 people who are regular readers read less. And on the other hand, people 490 00:46:39.960 --> 00:46:46.880 who hadn't done much reading before, like prisons of war or many of the 491 00:46:46.880 --> 00:46:51.800 troops, read a great deal more, because you have to remember that many 492 00:46:51.840 --> 00:46:57.039 of the troops weren't serving in the front line, but in support units where 493 00:46:57.519 --> 00:47:01.239 for long periods of the war there was nothing to do. They were maintaining 494 00:47:01.280 --> 00:47:06.960 defensive positions which weren't attacked. So for many of many of the troops and 495 00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:10.960 certainly many princes of war took up reading really for the first time. So 496 00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:15.400 I would say about the same number of people were reading lots of books. 497 00:47:15.440 --> 00:47:17.719 It was just they were different people. And the stuff about the prisoner of 498 00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:22.599 war thing that that's really interesting too. I enjoyed that section of the book, 499 00:47:22.880 --> 00:47:25.519 and it is of course worth repeating that you know, not every soldier 500 00:47:25.639 --> 00:47:30.920 is engaged in NonStop combat from the moment that they're conscripted to the moment that 501 00:47:30.920 --> 00:47:34.719 they're done. There's a lot you talk to anybody who's fought in the war, 502 00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:38.199 served in the army, there's a lot of downtime, and paperbacks provided 503 00:47:38.280 --> 00:47:43.880 an avenue for some entertainment during that time period. Well, thank you so 504 00:47:44.039 --> 00:47:46.519 much for coming on the show. It was a wonderful book to read. 505 00:47:46.599 --> 00:47:52.000 Obviously, I like books, so I enjoyed it. And you know, 506 00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:57.920 as someone who grew up a consumer of historical books that talk about war, 507 00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:00.800 it was interesting to think about it. You know, I'll read anything that 508 00:48:00.840 --> 00:48:05.639 tells me how important books are any day of the week. So to me, 509 00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:07.800 to me, that's that's wonderful. But thank you so much. I 510 00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:14.679 really appreciate it. That's my pleasure. It's very nice to be with you again.