Andrew Robertshaw is Director for Education at the National Army Museum and is currently working with Whitehall on their Household Cavalry museum project. He has presented numerous programmes on the First World War for the BBC and Channel 4; he is currently working on 'Finding the Fallen' for the Discovery Channel. In 1997 he published 'A Soldier's Life' (Heinemann/Penguin). He frequently lectures on battlefield archaeology and the First World War, and is Chair of 'No Man's Land', the European Group for First World War Archaeology. He lives in Surrey.
This brief account of that day, the first of a battle that would drag on for several months, sets the Somme in its larger context of World War I history. It explains the reasons for the disaster and discusses the British and German successes of that day. The book includes orders of battle for the BEF, French, and German units engaged, brief bibliography, and a description of the battlefield today. -Thomas R. Kailbourn, Military Trader Magazine