Arranged as a diary around a calendar year, Those Who Marched Away tells many individual stories from many years down the ages, with several compelling entries for each day of the year. The diarists come from every walk of life; from faceless foot soldiers to those charged with orchestrating battle, from the Home Front to the Holocaust, from famous writers, political leaders and fighting menand women to ordinary working people enveloped by events over which they have little influence. Together, they contribute an intimate insight into what has been described both as 'the most exciting and dramatic thing in life' and 'the universal perversion'.
'Wonderful…The awesome and tragic are balanced by the humdrum and quirky.'
Herald
'The writers are mere flotsam on the tides of war. Their words are subjective, partial, personal, sometimes prejudiced and occasionally mundane. But taken together and spanning centuries of warfare, they are the very stuff and substance of human experience.'
The Times