The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme - Hardcover

Stamp, Gavin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1861978111 ISBN 13: 9781861978110

Publisher: Profile Books, 2006

Synopsis

Edwin Lutyens' Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval in Northern France, visited annually by tens of thousands of tourists, is arguably the finest structure erected by any British architect in the twentieth century. It is the principal, tangible expression of the defining event in Britain's experience and memory of the Great War, the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, and it bears the names of 73,000 soldiers whose bodies were never found at the end of that bloody and futile campaign. This brilliant study by an acclaimed architectural historian tells the origin of the memorial in the context of commemorating the war dead; it considers the giant classical brick arch in architectural terms, and also explores its wider historical significance and its resonances today. So much of the meaning of the twentieth century is concentrated here; the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing casts a shadow into the future , a shadow which extends beyond the dead of the Holocaust, to the Gulag, to the 'disappeared' of South America and of Tianenmen. The Wonders of the World is a series of books that focuses on some of the world's most famous sites or monuments. Their names will be familiar to almost everyone: they have achieved iconic stature and are loaded with a fair amount of mythological baggage. These monuments have been the subject of many books over the centuries, but our aim, through the skill and stature of the writers, is to get something much more enlightening, stimulating, even controversial, than straightforward histories or guides.

About this title

Review:

[a] moving and eloquent book... (Literary Review)

as a piece of architectural analysis it is impressive (The Spectator)

Stamp has provided an invaluable, detailed and illuminating study... (Guardian)

the value of Stamp's book lies in its eloquent account of the genius of the vision of Edward Lutyens...who created in the Monument to the Missing at Thiepval the central metaphor of a generation's experience of appalling loss. (Observer)

This book is a gem...an eloquent, moving lament for the futile waste and industrialised killing of the First World War, and indeed of the 20th Century - an elegy which resonates powerfully today. (Sunday Telegraph)

Much, much more than architectural history, for here, encapsulated in marmoreally angry prose, is an account of that collective act of mass murder, without parallel in history, known as the Great War. An unforgettable, passionate book. (A.N. Wilson Evening Standard)

Perfectly formed and beautifully written, this book is a minor masterpiece, a paragon of its genre. It will move all but the hardest heart to tears at the folly, and the glory, that is man. (Ross Leckie The Times)

Book Description:

The definitive account of the history and significance of a world landmark - reissued in time for the anniversary of the Somme.

About this edition

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1861978111
• ISBN 13: 9781861978110
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224