The Crimean War and its Afterlife: Making Modern Britain

Lara Kriegel

feb 2022 · Cambridge University Press

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The mid-nineteenth century's Crimean War is frequently dismissed as an embarrassment, an event marred by blunders and an occasion better forgotten. In The Crimean War and its Afterlife Lara Kriegel sets out to rescue the Crimean War from the shadows. Kriegel offers a fresh account of the conflict and its afterlife: revisiting beloved figures like Florence Nightingale and hallowed events like the Charge of the Light Brigade, while also turning attention to newer worthies, including Mary Seacole. In this book a series of six case studies transport us from the mid-Victorian moment to the current day, focusing on the heroes, institutions, and values wrought out of the crucible of the war. Time and again, ordinary Britons looked to the war as a template for social formation and a lodestone for national belonging. With lucid prose and rich illustrations, this book vividly demonstrates the uncanny persistence of a Victorian war in the making of modern Britain.

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Lara Kriegel is Associate Professor of History and English at Indiana University, where she has served as Associate Editor of The American Historical Review and Editor of Victorian Studies. Kriegel is the author of Grand Designs (2007), as well as several interdisciplinary articles addressing empire, industry, and military culture in modern Britain.