Vintage wartime posters selected from the Imperial War Museum’s vast collection
This book reproduces the best of the Imperial War Museums collection of over 30,000 British Government wartime posters and proclamations, mostly from the First and Second World Wars, and most forgotten after their initial use. 100 eye-catching posters (with 62 perforated and detachable) contain stirring messages that once exhorted citizens to do their bit for the war effort: Eat Greens for Health, Beer: A Necessity to the Strength of Britain, Fit Men Wanted, Victory is in the Kitchen, The Supreme Test of British Womanhood Comes Now. Today they seem charmingly innocent, quintessentially British, and often very funny. The posters that bear them are a treasury of vintage graphics.
Like the much-loved ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster, these proclamations – specially selected from over 30,000 in the Imperial War Museum’s collections – are just what we need to keep a stiff upper lip and a sense of humour in our own troubled times.
'A flick through these iconic images provides an interesting, moving and often humorous insight into the poignant words and images that inspired British men and women throughout times of war. '
Daily Express
'A great new collection of wartime posters and about as stiff upper-lipped as it gets. '
Time Out
'The Keep Calm and Carry On poster phenomenon has now spawned Fit Men Wanted… a compendium of British government posters from the two World Wars. '
Metro
'With these poster pull-outs, you too can inspire a little stiff upper lip spirit and resolve. '
Big Issue
'The posters crackle with wit and visual energy and powerfully evoke a bygone era.'
The Wall Street Journal
Format: Paperback with flaps
Size: 31.7 x 24.0 cm
Extent: 128 pp
Publication date: 28 August 2012
ISBN: 9780500290552