Terri Blom Crocker is a PhD candidate and the senior paralegal for investigations in the Office of Legal Counsel at the University of Kentucky, USA.
"Powerful and convincing. I hope we hear more from this historian
in the future." -- Washington Times
"This is certain to be the standard work on the subject." -- NYMAS
Review
"A sharp look at the so-called 'Christmas truce' of 1914,
discovering that distortion has colored many accounts of it -- and
of World War I itself.... Crocker has created a work perhaps
powerful enough to alter the conventional narrative of the
incident. She destroys a number of misconceptions.... A storm of
debate will no doubt ensue.... the discoveries may be revolutionary
in World War I historiography." -- KIRKUS
"Amongst the litany of false narratives and ahistorical morals
ascribed to the armistice, Crocker has managed to uncover new
lessons to be learned from the Christmas true." -- Journal of
Military History
"Crocker's book will become essential reading for anyone who wishes
to know how the First World War came to be understood as that
'exercise in futility' we have come to accept without question
today. It is a sober corrective and a judicious revelation of how
and why the myths surrounding this war have become so hard to
dislodge." -- Nicoletta F. Gullace, author of The Blood of Our
Sons: Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship
during the Great War
"[T]he book makes a welcome assault on the prevailing
disillusionment narrative that historians have only recently begun
to dismantle. Specifically, Terri Blom Crocker has written a
cautionary tale of the power of selection bias in news stories,
oral history interviews, and films (including documentaries) to
transform a historical event into an icon of antiwar sentiment in
the decades that followed it. These virtues make The Christmas
Truce valuable reading for anyone interested in an odd moment of
the First World War and its evolution in historical memory." --
Michigan War Studies Review
"Crocker, through meticulous research, dismantles the revisionist
histories put forth in the 1960s by both historian and filmmaker
alike to reveal a significant series of events which began
independently at various points along the 20-mile Western Front."
-- Kaintuckeean
"Crocker's scholarship reveals the multiple meanings of the
Christmas Truce, one of the most iconic moments in the memory of
the First World War: did it offer temporary respite from the job, a
fraternal bonding opportunity, or was it an anti-war rebellion?
This fascinating microhistory has much to tell us about the
experience of war, the way it was reported, and the shifting way in
which it has been remembered." -- Jenny Macleod, University of
Hull
"In this book Terri Crocker carefully and forensically investigates
perhaps the most mythologised of all First World War events. The
book makes a major, revisionist contribution to our understanding
of the war and its popular memory, and is essential reading for
anyone interested in the real history of Christmas 1914." -- Keith
Jeffery, author of Ireland and the Great War
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