This controversial book, by one of our finest military historians, reveals the squalid truth about Britain's highest military honour, exposing a shameful history of racism, misogyny and political expediency.
Gary Mead was a journalist for the Financial Times for ten years and has worked extensively for the BBC and Granada TV. He is the author of The Doughboys: America and the First World War (2000) and The Good Soldier (2007).
This highly revisionist, hard-hitting book will I predict be highly
controversial. Yet no-one will deny Gary Mead's scholarship, deep
research and ability to express an argument with lucidity and
passion, as well as his readiness to name names. The Ministry of
Defence must now listen to his arguments, and profoundly reform the
way we reward - or more often fail to reward - our heroes
*Andrew Roberts*
Victoria's Cross is a highly original, judicious book, which
questions our long-held assumptions about Britain's highest honour.
In beautifully lucid prose, Gary Mead reminds us of the complex
background to the creation of the VC. More importantly, he reveals
how this decoration, originally a means of recognizing exceptional
individual gallantry, has, almost imperceptibly, come to be a
potent political tool, far removed from its roots. This is a
"must-read" book for anyone interested in military and social
history.
*Peter Hart*
A thorough, cogent and almost unarguable case
*Spectator*
This book is not simply another collection of heroic VC stories. It
is, rather, a critique of the criteria by which the medal is
awarded, and its conclusions about the arbitrary nature of many VC
awards are quite disturbing.
*Daily Telegraph*
Mead pulls no punches in asserting that the kind of behaviour
necessary to gain a VC today is not so much courage as
"madness".
*Military History Monthly*
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