Customer Reviews
A very high standard of research. - By: Keith Smith, 15 Apr 2007 
I found this book to be an excellent read on a subject rarely tackled. Not since Following The Drum by Brigadier Pagein 1986 (covering the Peninsular War)have I seen a work of this standard, with its exceptional detailed research which probes the lives of the simple camp followers as well as the well-heeled good & the great of all nations involved. I like also the accuracy of dates & events of the campaign, an aspect which I have found to be lackingin many recent publications. This book will appeal to a very wide range of readers & not just students of 19th century conflicts.
A New Classic on the Crimean War - By: Lawrence W. Crider, 14 Apr 2007 It is hard to list the superlatives of this book. Helen Rappaport has exceptional writing & research skills. The result is a book which is a fascinating read, while simultaneously providing a wealth of information for the research historian. Where former booksin this genre provided a few well known stories of British heroines, Ms. Rappaport has provided a much more extensive account to include stories of the bravery & heroic actions of the French & Russian women that were present. She tells her tale with praiseworthy objectivity, so that even Florence Nightingale & Mary Seacole are not portrayed as plaster saints, but as living, breathing persons. In weaving her tale, the author has not only provided the story of the women of the war, but an excellent, concise history of the war itself. Destined to be a new classic on the war!
No Place for Ladies - By: C. Zaba, 20 Mar 2007 This quiet book is dynamite - a groundbreaking account of what the women got up toin one of the most iconic wars ever fought by Britain, &in many ways a precursor to the First World Warin its sheer mismanagement & negligence. Women were there to pick up the pieces, & many of them diedin the process. Others you'll never seein the same light again: Florence Nightingale, a control freak & ambitious, bad-tempered administrator; Mary Seacole, the Creole Jamaican with shoulders broad enough to conquer every adversity & still have heart enough left to comfort despairing & injured menin a place bleaker than anywhere. There were the hapless lovelorn ones who were abandoned on lonely beaches weeping; the loyal ones who just simply died with their men (you can't help wondering why - did they really have no homes to go to?); the aristocrats who loved their horses & their flirting; the busy, enterprising ones who set up businesses wherever they went. Children didn't stand much of a chance; but the fact that any women came through at all is miracle enough.
Meticulously researched, compassionate & readable, this is a book written with a level head & a steady gaze, which looks at what we all want to see but few of us do. Victorian England is both kinder & more cruel than I'd thought. The women say it all.
