Welsh writer and broadcaster, Phil Carradice, explores the ways the British public and soldiers creatively expressed themselves or were entertained during World War I in Keep the Home Fires Burning. Across six sections, Carradice details popular entertainment in periodicals, performances, and films as well as propaganda in its many different aspects.

Carradice gives general overviews of these many different methods and discusses the formation of the Propaganda Ministry as it developed and took control over what content was acceptable to distribute. Chapters on individuals give full biographies, of course with the focus on their war work, but also detailing youths and postwar life as possible. I was very happy to see sections on artists Bruce Bairnsfather, Fergus Mackain-Bremner and several mention of poet and composer Ivor Gurney.

While an accessibly written introduction to the war, this book does not offer much in the way of depth for those more knowledgeable on this topic. Also, Carradice is of the school of thought that the generals in charge were butchers of men, unwilling or able to adapt their tactics to break the stalemate an oversimplification explored with more nuance elsewhere, such as Tony Ashworth's Trench Warfare, 1914-1918: The Live And Let Live System.

I really need to remember to look at the publisher when I request a book, because Pen and Sword History has a bad track record of publishing un-fact-checked opinion pieces masquerading--and not well--as non-fiction. Author Carradice tells us what was good and bad about music and other forms of entertainment used as propaganda in Britain during the Great War, never failing to express elitist attitudes and some good old-fashioned sexism at the same time. There's no objective analysis or teasing out of meaning or explication, and there's certainly no expertise on music, theater, film, or print media to be had.