{"id":59782,"date":"2020-06-23T01:55:12","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T01:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59782"},"modified":"2020-06-23T01:55:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T01:55:14","slug":"black-tommies-british-soldiers-of-african-descent-in-the-first-world-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59782","title":{"rendered":"Black Tommies: British Soldiers of African Descent in the First World War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk\/books\/id\/38416\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>Black Tommies: British Soldiers of African Descent in the First World War<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Liverpool University Press<\/a><br \/>\n2015-12-04<br \/>\n208 pages<br \/>\nHardback ISBN: 978-1-781-38018-5<br \/>\nPaperback ISBN: 978-1-781-38019-2<br \/>\neBook ISBN: 978-1-781-38427-5<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ray Costello<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk\/books\/id\/38416\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mediaserver.cloudpublish.co.uk\/9781781384275\/cover\/9781781384275.png\" width=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Black Tommies<\/em> is the first book entirely dedicated to the part played by soldiers of African descent in the British regular army during the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/First_world_war\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">First World War<\/a>. If African colonial troops have been ignored by historians, the existence of any substantial narrative around Black British soldiers enlisting in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_Kingdom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">United Kingdom<\/a> during the First World War is equally unknown, even in military circles. Much more material is now coming to light, such as the oral testimony of veterans, and the author has researched widely to gather fresh and original material for this fascinating book from primary documentary sources in archives to private material kept in the metaphorical (and actual) shoe boxes of descendants of black Tommies. Reflecting the global nature of the conflict, <em>Black Tommies<\/em> takes us on a journey from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Africa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Africa<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Caribbean\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Caribbean<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_America\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">North America<\/a> to the streets of British port cities such as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cardiff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cardiff<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Liverpool\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Liverpool<\/a> and those of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_East_England\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">North Eastern England<\/a>. This exciting book also explodes the myth of Second Lieutenant <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Walter_Tull\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Walter Tull<\/a> being the first, or only, black officer in the British Army and endeavours to give the narrative of black soldiers a firm basis for future scholars to build upon by tackling an area of British history previously ignored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Black Tommies&#8221; is the first book entirely dedicated to the part played by soldiers of African descent in the British regular army during the First World War.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,459,8,17,10],"tags":[11271,5921,17659],"class_list":["post-59782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-media-archive","category-monographs","category-uk","tag-liverpool-university-press","tag-ray-costello","tag-walter-tull"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59784,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59782\/revisions\/59784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}