title: British Army

text: The First World War was the most devastating in British military history, with nearly 800,000 men killed and over two million wounded. Early in the war, the BEF was virtually destroyed and was replaced first by volunteers and then by a conscript force. Major battles included those at the Somme and Passchendaele. Advances in technology saw the advent of the tank (and the creation of the Royal Tank Regiment) and advances in aircraft design (and the creation of the Royal Flying Corps) which would be decisive in future battles. Trench warfare dominated Western Front strategy for most of the war, and the use of chemical weapons (disabling and poison gases) added to the devastation.


title: British Army

text: The Second World War broke out in September 1939 with the Russian and German Army's invasion of Poland. British assurances to the Poles led the British Empire to declare war on Germany. As in the First World War, a relatively small BEF was sent to France but then hastily evacuated from Dunkirk as the German forces swept through the Low Countries and across France in May 1940.


title: British Army

text: After the British Army recovered from its earlier defeats, it defeated the Germans and Italians at the Second Battle of El Alamein in North Africa in 1942–1943 and helped drive them from Africa. It then fought through Italy and, with the help of American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian and Free French forces, and took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944; nearly half the Allied soldiers were British. In the Far East, the British Army rallied against the Japanese in the Burma Campaign and regained the British Far Eastern colonial possessions.


title: British Army

text: After the Second World War the British Army was significantly reduced in size, although National Service continued until 1960. This period saw decolonisation begin with the partition and independence of India and Pakistan, followed by the independence of British colonies in Africa and Asia.


title: British Army

text: The Corps Warrant, which is the official list of which bodies of the British Military (not to be confused with "naval") Forces were to be considered Corps of the British Army for the purposes of the Army Act, the Reserve Forces Act, 1882, and the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act, 1907, had not been updated since 1926 (Army Order 49 of 1926), although amendments had been made up to and including Army Order 67 of 1950. A new Corps Warrant was declared in 1951.


title: British Army

text: Although the British Army was a major participant in Korea in the early 1950s and Suez in 1956, during this period Britain's role in world events was reduced and the army was downsized. The British Army of the Rhine, consisting of I (BR) Corps, remained in Germany as a bulwark against Soviet invasion. The Cold War continued, with significant technological advances in warfare, and the army saw the introduction of new weapons systems. Despite the decline of the British Empire, the army was engaged in Aden, Indonesia, Cyprus, Kenya and Malaya. In 1982, the British Army and the Royal Marines helped liberate the Falkland Islands during the conflict with Argentina after that country's invasion of the British territory.


title: British Army

text: In the three decades following 1969, the army was heavily deployed in Northern Ireland's Operation Banner to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (later the Police Service of Northern Ireland) in their conflict with republican paramilitary groups. The locally recruited Ulster Defence Regiment was formed, becoming home-service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment in 1992 before it was disbanded in 2006. Over 700 soldiers were killed during the Troubles. Following the 1994–1996 IRA ceasefires and since 1997, demilitarisation has been part of the peace process and the military presence has been reduced. On 25 June 2007 the 2nd Battalion of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment left the army complex in Bessbrook, County Armagh, ending the longest operation in British Army history.


title: British Army

text: The British Army contributed 50,000 troops to the coalition which fought Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, and British forces controlled Kuwait after its liberation. Forty-seven British military personnel died during the war.


title: British Army

text: The army was deployed to former Yugoslavia in 1992. Initially part of the United Nations Protection Force, in 1995 its command was transferred to the Implementation Force (IFOR) and then to the Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR); the commitment rose to over 10,000 troops. In 1999, British forces under SFOR command were sent to Kosovo and the contingent increased to 19,000 troops. Between early 1993 and June 2010, 72 British military personnel died during operations in the former Yugoslavian countries of Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.


title: British Army

text: Although there have been permanent garrisons in Northern Ireland throughout its history, the British Army was deployed as a peacekeeping force from 1969 to 2007 in Operation Banner. Initially, this was (in the wake of unionist attacks on nationalist communities in Derry and Belfast) to prevent further loyalist attacks on Catholic communities; it developed into support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and its successor, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) against the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, there was a gradual reduction in the number of soldiers deployed. In 2005, after the PIRA declared a ceasefire, the British Army dismantled posts, withdrew many troops and restored troop levels to those of a peacetime garrison.


title: British Army

text: Operation Banner ended at midnight on 31 July 2007 after about 38 years of continuous deployment, the longest in British Army history. According to an internal document released in 2007, the British Army had failed to defeat the IRA but made it impossible for them to win by violence. Operation Helvetic replaced Operation Banner in 2007, maintaining fewer service personnel in a more-benign environment. Of the 300,000 troops who served in Northern Ireland since 1969, there were 763 British military personnel killed and 306 killed by the British military, mostly civilians. An estimated 100 soldiers committed suicide during Operation Banner or soon afterwards and a similar number died in accidents. A total of 6,116 were wounded.


title: British Army

text: The British Army deployed to Sierra Leone for Operation Palliser in 1999, under United Nations resolutions, to aid the government in quelling violent uprisings by militiamen. British troops also provided support during the 2014 West African Ebola virus epidemic.


title: British Army

text: In November 2001, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom with the United States, the United Kingdom deployed forces in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban in Operation Herrick. The 3rd Division were sent to Kabul to assist in the liberation of the capital and defeat Taliban forces in the mountains. In 2006 the British Army began concentrating on fighting Taliban forces and bringing security to Helmand Province, with about 9,500 British troops (including marines, airmen and sailors) deployed at its peak—the second-largest force after that of the US. In December 2012 Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the combat mission would end in 2014, and troop numbers gradually fell as the Afghan National Army took over the brunt of the fighting. Between 2001 and 26 April 2014 a total of 453 British military personnel died in Afghan operations. Operation Herrick ended with the handover of Camp Bastion on 26 October 2014, but the British Army maintains a deployment in Afghanistan as part of Operation Toral.


title: British Army

text: Following an announcement by the US Government of the end of their operations in the Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence announced in April 2021 that British forces would withdraw from the country by 11 September 2021. It was later reported that all UK troops would be out by early July. Following the collapse of the Afghan Army, and the completion of the withdrawal of civilians, all British troops had left by the end of August 2021.


title: British Army

text: In 2003, the United Kingdom was a major contributor to the invasion of Iraq, sending a force of over 46,000 military personnel. The British Army controlled southern Iraq, and maintained a peace-keeping presence in Basra. All British troops were withdrawn from Iraq by 30 April 2009, after the Iraqi government refused to extend their mandate. One hundred and seventy-nine British military personnel died in Iraqi operations. The British Armed Forces returned to Iraq in 2014 as part of Operation Shader to counter the Islamic State (ISIL).


title: British Army

text: The British Army maintains a standing liability to support the civil authorities in certain circumstances, usually in either niche capabilities (e.g. explosive ordnance removal) or in general support of the civil authorities when their capacity is exceeded. In recent years this has been seen as army personnel supporting the civil authorities in the face of the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak, the 2002 firefighters strike, widespread flooding in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2014, Operation Temperer following the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 and, most recently, Operation Rescript during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: British Army

text: Since 2016, the British Army has maintained a presence in Eastern Europe in support of the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence strategy which responded to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. The British Army leads a multinational armoured battlegroup in Estonia under Operation Cabrit and contributes troops to another military battle group in Poland.


title: British Army

text: Between 2015 and 2022, the British Army deployed Short Term Training Teams (SSTs) to Ukraine under Operation Orbital to help train the Armed Forces of Ukraine against further Russian aggression. This operation was succeeded by Operation Interflex in July 2022.


title: British Army

text: The British Army has been a volunteer force since national service ended during the 1960s. Since the creation of the part-time, reserve Territorial Force in 1908 (renamed the Army Reserve in 2014), the full-time British Army has been known as the Regular Army. In July 2020 there were just over 78,800 Regulars, with a target strength of 82,000, and just over 30,000 Army Reservists, with a target strength of 30,000. All former Regular Army personnel may also be recalled to duty in exceptional circumstances during the 6-year period following completion of their Regular service, which creates an additional force known as the Regular Reserve.


title: British Army

text: The British Army's basic weapon is the 5.56 mm L85A2 or L85A3 assault rifle, with some specialist personnel using the L22A2 carbine variant (pilots and some tank crew). The weapon was traditionally equipped with either iron sights or an optical SUSAT, although other optical sights have been subsequently purchased to supplement these. The weapon can be enhanced further utilising the Picatinny rail with attachments such as the L17A2 under-barrel grenade launcher.


title: British Army

text: Some soldiers are equipped with the 7.62mm L129A1 sharpshooter rifle, which in 2018 formally replaced the L86A2 Light Support Weapon. Support fire is provided by the L7 general-purpose machine gun (GPMG), and indirect fire is provided by L16 81mm mortars. Sniper rifles include the L118A1 7.62 mm, L115A3 and the AW50F, all manufactured by Accuracy International. The British Army utilises the Glock 17 as its side arm.


title: British Army

text: The army's main battle tank is the Challenger 2. It is supported by the Warrior tracked armoured vehicle as the primary infantry fighting vehicle and the many variants of the Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) and Bulldog. Light armoured units often utilise the Supacat "Jackal" MWMIK and Coyote for reconnaissance and fire support.


title: British Army

text: The army has three main artillery systems: the Multi Launch Rocket System (MLRS), the AS-90 and the L118 light gun. The MLRS, first used in Operation Granby, has an range. The AS-90 is a 155 mm self-propelled armoured gun with a range. The L118 light gun is a 105 mm towed gun. To identify artillery targets, the army operates weapon locators such as the MAMBA Radar and utilises artillery sound ranging. For air defence it uses the Short-Range Air Defence (SHORAD) Rapier FSC missile system, widely deployed since the Falklands War, and which as of 2021 is being replaced by the new Sky Sabre system. It also deploys the Very Short-Range Air Defence (VSHORAD) Starstreak HVM (high-velocity missile) launched by a single soldier or from a vehicle-mounted launcher.


title: British Army

text: Where armour is not required or mobility and speed are favoured the British Army utilises protected patrol vehicles, such as the Panther variant of the Iveco LMV, the Foxhound, and variants of the Cougar family (such as the Ridgeback, Husky and Mastiff). For day-to-day utility work the army commonly uses the Land Rover Wolf, which is based on the Land Rover Defender.


title: British Army

text: Specialist engineering vehicles include bomb-disposal robots and the modern variants of the Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers, including the Titan bridge-layer, Trojan combat-engineer vehicle, Terrier Armoured Digger and Python Minefield Breaching System. Day-to-day utility work uses a series of support vehicles, including six-, nine- and fifteen-tonne trucks (often called "Bedfords", after a historic utility vehicle), heavy-equipment transporters (HET), close-support tankers, quad bikes and ambulances. Tactical communication uses the Bowman radio system, and operational or strategic communication is controlled by the Royal Corps of Signals.


title: British Army

text: The Army Air Corps (AAC) provides direct aviation support, with the Royal Air Force providing support helicopters. The primary attack helicopter is the Westland WAH-64 Apache, a licence-built, modified version of the US AH-64 Apache which replaced the Westland Lynx AH7 in the anti-tank role. Other helicopters include the Westland Gazelle (a light surveillance aircraft), the Bell 212 (in jungle "hot and high" environments) and the AgustaWestland AW159 Wildcat, a dedicated intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) helicopter. The Eurocopter AS 365N Dauphin is used for special operations aviation. The army operates two unmanned aerial vehicles ('UAV's) in a surveillance role: the small Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk III and the larger Thales Watchkeeper WK450.


title: British Army

text: Army Headquarters is located in Andover, Hampshire, and is responsible for providing forces at operational readiness for employment by the Permanent Joint Headquarters. The command structure is hierarchical, with overall command residing with the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), who is immediately subordinate to The Chief of Defence Staff, the head of the British Armed Services. The CGS is supported by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff. Army Headquarters is further organised into two subordinate commands, Field Army and Home Command, each commanded by a lieutenant general. These two Commands serve distinct purposes and are divided into a structure of divisions and brigades, which themselves consist of a complex mix of smaller units such as Battalions. British Army units are either full-time 'Regular' units, or part-time Army Reserve units.


title: British Army

text: Led by Commander Field Army, the Field Army is responsible for generating and preparing forces for current and contingency operations. The Field Army comprises


title: British Army

text: Home Command is the British Army's supporting command; a generating, recruiting and training force that supports the Field Army and delivers UK resilience. It comprises


title: British Army

text: The British Army contributes two of the three special forces formations to the United Kingdom Special Forces directorate: the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR). The SAS consists of one regular and two reserve regiments. The regular regiment, 22 SAS, has its headquarters at Stirling Lines, Credenhill, Herefordshire. It consists of 5 squadrons (A, B, D, G and Reserve) and a training wing. 22 SAS is supported by 2 reserve regiments, 21 SAS and 23 SAS, which collectively form the Special Air Service (Reserve) (SAS [R]), who in 2020 were transferred back under the command of Director of Special Forces after previously being under the command of the 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade. The SRR, formed in 2005, performs close reconnaissance and special surveillance tasks. The Special Forces Support Group, under the operational control of the Director of Special Forces, provides operational manoeuvring support to the United Kingdom Special Forces.


title: British Army

text: The British Army historically included many units from what are now separate Commonwealth realms. When the English Empire was established in North America (including Bermuda), and the West Indies in the early 17th century there was no standing English Army, only the Militia, Yeomanry, and Royal bodyguards, of which the Militia, as the primary home-defence force, was immediately extended to the colonies. Colonial militias defended colonies single-handedly at first against indigenous peoples and European competitors. Once the standing English Army, later the British Army, came into existence and began to garrison the colonies, the colonial militias fought side by side with it in a number of wars, including the Seven Years' War. Some of the colonial militias rebelled during the American War of Independence. The militia fought alongside the regular British Army (and native allies) in defending British North America from their former countrymen during the War of 1812.


title: British Army

text: Locally raised units in strategically located Imperial fortress colonies (including: Nova Scotia before the Canadian Confederation; Bermuda – which was treated as part of The Maritimes under the Commander-in-Chief at Nova Scotia until Canadian Confederation; Gibraltar; and Malta) and the Channel Islands were generally maintained from army funds and more fully integrated into the British Army as evident from their appearances in British Army lists, unlike units such as the King's African Rifles.


title: British Army

text: The larger colonies (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, etc.) mostly achieved Commonwealth Dominion status before or after the First World War and were granted full legislative independence in 1931. While remaining within the British Empire, this placed their governments on a par with the British government, and hence their military units comprised separate armies (e.g. the Australian Army), although Canada retained the term "militia" for its military forces until the Second World War. From the 1940s, these dominions and many colonies chose full independence, usually becoming Commonwealth realms (as member states of the Commonwealth are known today).


title: British Army

text: Units raised in self-governing and Crown colonies (those without local elected Legislatures, as was the case with British Hong Kong) that are part of the British realm remain under British Government control. As the territorial governments are delegated responsibility only for internal government, the UK Government, as the government of the Sovereign state, retains responsibility for national security and the defence of the fourteen remaining British Overseas Territories, of which six have locally raised regiments:


title: British Army

text: The structure of the British Army beneath the level of Divisions and Brigades is also hierarchical and command is based on rank. The table below details how many units within the British Army are structured, although there can be considerable variation between individual units:


title: British Army

text: Whilst many units are organised as Battalions or Regiments administratively, the most common fighting unit is the combined arms unit known as a Battlegroup. This is formed around a combat unit and supported by units (or sub-units) from other capabilities. An example of a battlegroup would be two companies of armoured infantry (e.g. from the 1st Battalion of the Mercian Regiment), one squadron of heavy armour (e.g. A Squadron of the Royal Tank Regiment), a company of engineers (e.g. B Company of the 22nd Engineer Regiment), a Battery of artillery (e.g. D Battery of the 1st Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery) and smaller attachments from medical, logistic and intelligence units. Typically organised and commanded by a battlegroup headquarters and named after the unit which provided the most combat units, in this example, it would be the 1 Mercian Battlegroup. This creates a self-sustaining mixed formation of armour, infantry, artillery, engineers and support units, commanded by a lieutenant colonel.


title: British Army

text: The British Army primarily recruits from within the United Kingdom, but accept applications from all British citizens. It also accepts applications from Irish citizens and Commonwealth citizens, with certain restrictions. Since 2018 the British Army has been an equal-opportunity employer (with some legal exceptions due to medical standards), and does not discriminate based on race, religion or sexual orientation. Applicants for the Regular Army must be a minimum age of 16, although soldiers under 18 may not serve in operations, and the maximum age is 36. Applicants for the Army Reserve must be a minimum of 17 years and 9 months, and a maximum age of 43. Different age limits apply for Officers and those in some specialist roles. Applicants must also meet several other requirements, notably regarding medical health, physical fitness, past-criminal convictions, education, and regarding any tattoos and piercings.


title: British Army

text: Soldiers & Officers in the Regular Army now enlist for an initial period of 12 years, with options to extend if they meet certain requirements. Soldiers & Officers are normally required to serve for a minimum of 4 years from date of enlistment and must give 12 months' notice before leaving.


title: British Army

text: All soldiers and commissioned officers must take an oath of allegiance upon joining the Army, a process known as attestation. Those who wish to swear by God use the following words:


title: British Army

text: Others replace the words "swear by Almighty God" with "solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm".


title: British Army

text: Candidates for the Army undergo common training, beginning with initial military training, to bring all personnel to a similar standard in basic military skills, which is known as Phase 1 training. They then undertake further specialist trade-training for their specific Regiment or Corps, known as Phase 2 training. After completing Phase 1 training a soldier is counted against the Army's trained strength, and upon completion of Phase 2 are counted against the Army's fully trained trade strength.


title: British Army

text: Soldiers under the age of 17 and 6 months will complete Phase 1 training at the Army Foundation College. Infantry Soldiers will complete combined Phase 1 & 2 training at the Infantry Training Centre, Catterick, whilst all other Soldiers will attend Phase 1 training at the Army Training Centre Pirbright or Army Training Regiment, Winchester, and then complete Phase 2 training at different locations depending on their specialism. Officers conduct their initial training, which lasts 44 weeks, at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS), before also completing their Phase 2 training at multiple different locations.


title: British Army

text: The British Army's official flag is the 3:5 ratio Union Jack. The Army also has a non-ceremonial flag that is often seen flying from military buildings and is used at recruiting and military events and exhibitions. Traditionally most British Army units had a set of flags, known as the colours—normally a Regimental Colour and a Queen's Colour (the Union Jack). Historically these were carried into battle as a rallying point for the soldiers and were closely guarded. In modern units the colours are often prominently displayed, decorated with battle honours, and act as a focal point for Regimental pride. A soldier re-joining a regiment (upon recall from the reserve) is described as "re-called to the Colours".


title: British Army

text: Most ranks across the British Army are known by the same name regardless of which Regiment they are in. However, the Household Cavalry call many ranks by different names, the Royal Artillery refer to Corporals as Bombardiers, and Private soldiers are known by a wide variety of titles; notably trooper, gunner, guardsman, sapper, signalman, fusilier, craftsman and rifleman dependant on the Regiment they belong to. These names do not affect a soldier's pay or role.


title: British Army

text: The oldest of the Reserve Forces was the Militia Force (also referred to as the "Constitutional Force"), which (in the Kingdom of England, prior to 1707) was originally the main military defensive force (there otherwise were originally only Royal bodyguards, including the Yeomen Warders and the Yeomen of the Guard, with armies raised only temporarily for expeditions overseas), made up of civilians embodied for annual training or emergencies, which had used various schemes of compulsory service during different periods of its long existence. From the 1850s it recruited volunteers who engaged for terms of service. The Militia was originally an all-infantry force, though Militia coastal artillery, field artillery, and engineers units were introduced from the 1850s, organised at the city or county level, and members were not required to serve outside of their recruitment area, although the area within which militia units in Britain could be posted was increased to anywhere in the Britain during the Eighteenth Century.


title: British Army

text: Volunteer Force units were also frequently raised during wartime and disbanded upon peace. This was re-established as a permanent (i.e., in war and peace) part of the Reserve Forces in 1859. It differed from the Militia in a number of ways, most particularly in that volunteers did not commit to a term service, and were able to resign with fourteen days notice (except while embodied). As volunteer soldiers were originally expected to fund the cost of their own equipment, few tended to come from the labouring class among whom the Militia primarily recruited.


title: British Army

text: The Yeomanry Force was made up of mounted units, organised similarly to the Volunteer Force, first raised during the two decades of war with France that followed the French Revolution. As with the Volunteers, members of the Yeomanry were expected to foot much of the cost of their own equipment, including their horses, and the make-up of the units tended to be from more affluent classes.


title: British Army

text: Although Militia regiments were linked with British Army regiments during the course of the Napoleonic Wars to feed volunteers for service abroad into the regular army, and volunteers from the Reserve Forces served abroad either individually or in contingents, service companies, or battalions in a succession of conflicts from the Crimean War to the Second Boer War, personnel did not normally move between forces unless re-attested as a member of the new force, and units did not normally move from the Reserve Forces to become part of the Regular Forces, or vice versa. There were exceptions, however, as with the "New Brunswick Regiment of Fencible Infantry", raised in 1803, which became the 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot when it was transferred to the British Army on 13 September 1810.


title: British Army

text: Another type of reserve force was created during the period between the French Revolution and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Called Fencibles, these were disbanded after the Napoleonic Wars and not raised again, although the Royal Malta Fencible Regiment, later the "Royal Malta Fencible Artillery", existed from 1815 until the 1880s when it became the Royal Malta Artillery, and the Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps was formed in 1846.


title: British Army

text: The Reserve Forces were raised locally (in Britain, under the control of Lords-Lieutenant of counties, and, in British colonies, under the colonial governors, and members originally were obliged to serve only within their locality (which, in the United Kingdom, originally meant within the county or other recruitment area, but was extended to anywhere in Britain, though not overseas). They have consequently also been referred to as "Local Forces". As they were (and in some cases "are") considered separate forces from the British Army, though still within the British military, they have also been known as "Auxiliary Forces". The Militia and Volunteer units of a colony were generally considered to be separate forces from the "Home" Militia Force and Volunteer Force in the United Kingdom, and from the Militia Forces and Volunteer Forces of other colonies. Where a colony had more than one Militia or Volunteer unit, they would be grouped as a Militia or Volunteer Force for that colony, such as the Jamaica Volunteer Defence Force. Officers of the Reserve Forces could not sit on Courts Martial of regular forces personnel. The Mutiny Act did not apply to members of the Reserve Forces. The "Reserve Forces" within the British Isles were increasingly integrated with the British Army through a succession of reforms (beginning with the Cardwell Reforms) of the British military forces over the last two decades of the Nineteenth Century and the early years of the Twentieth Century, whereby the Reserve Forces units mostly lost their own identities and became numbered Militia or Volunteer battalions of regular British Army corps or regiments.


title: British Army

text: In 1908, the Yeomanry and Volunteer Force were merged to create the Territorial Force (changed to "Territorial Army" after the First World War), with terms of service similar to the army and Militia, and the Militia was renamed the "Special Reserve", After the First World War the Special Reserve was renamed the Militia, again, but permanently suspended (although a handful of Militia units survived in the United Kingdom, its colonies, and the Crown Dependencies). Although the Territorial Force was nominally still a separate force from the British Army, by the end of the century, at the latest, any unit wholly or partly funded from Army Funds was considered part of the British Army. Outside the United Kingdom-proper, this was generally only the case for those units in the Channel Islands or the Imperial fortress colonies (Nova Scotia, before Canadian confederation; Bermuda; Gibraltar; and Malta).


title: British Army

text: The Bermuda Militia Artillery, Bermuda Militia Infantry, Bermuda Volunteer Engineers, and the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, by example were paid for by the War Office and considered part of the British Army, with their officers appearing in the "Army List" unlike those of many other colonial units deemed auxiliaries. Today, the British Army is the only Home British military force, including the various other forces it has absorbed, though British military units organised on Territorial Army lines remain in British Overseas Territories that are still not considered formally part of the British Army, with only the Royal Gibraltar Regiment and the Royal Bermuda Regiment (an amalgam of the old Bermuda Militia Artillery and Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps) appearing on the British Army order-of-precedence and in the Army List, as well as on the Corps Warrant (the official list of those British military forces that are considered corps of the British Army).


title: British Army

text: The British Army uniform has sixteen categories, ranging from ceremonial uniforms to combat dress to evening wear. No. 8 Dress, the day-to-day uniform, is known as "Personal Clothing System – Combat Uniform" (PCS-CU) and consists of a Multi-Terrain Pattern (MTP) windproof smock, a lightweight jacket and trousers with ancillary items such as thermals and waterproofs. The army has introduced tactical recognition flashes (TRFs); worn on the right arm of a combat uniform, the insignia denotes the wearer's regiment or corps. In addition to working dress, the army has a number of parade uniforms for ceremonial and non-ceremonial occasions. The most-commonly-seen uniforms are No.1 Dress (full ceremonial, seen at formal occasions such as at the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace) and No.2 Dress (Service Dress), a brown khaki uniform worn for non-ceremonial parades.


title: British Army

text: Working headdress is typically a beret, whose colour indicates its wearer's type of regiment. Beret colours are:


title: Albert Camus

text: Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works include "The Stranger", "The Plague", "The Myth of Sisyphus", "The Fall", and "The Rebel".


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus was born in French Algeria to "Pieds Noirs" parents. He spent his childhood in a poor neighbourhood and later studied philosophy at the University of Algiers. He was in Paris when the Germans invaded France during World War II in 1940. Camus tried to flee but finally joined the French Resistance where he served as editor-in-chief at "Combat", an outlawed newspaper. After the war, he was a celebrity figure and gave many lectures around the world. He married twice but had many extramarital affairs. Camus was politically active; he was part of the left that opposed Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union because of their totalitarianism. Camus was a moralist and leaned towards anarcho-syndicalism. He was part of many organisations seeking European integration. During the Algerian War (1954–1962), he kept a neutral stance, advocating for a multicultural and pluralistic Algeria, a position that caused controversy and was rejected by most parties.


title: Albert Camus

text: Philosophically, Camus's views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. Some consider Camus's work to show him to be an existentialist, even though he himself firmly rejected the term throughout his lifetime.


title: Albert Camus

text: Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in a working-class neighbourhood in Mondovi (present-day Dréan), in French Algeria. His mother, Catherine Hélène Camus (née Sintès), was French with Balearic Spanish ancestry. He never knew his father, Lucien Camus, a poor French agricultural worker killed in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during World War I. Camus, his mother and other relatives lived without many basic material possessions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers. Camus was a second-generation French in Algeria, a French territory from 1830 until 1962. His paternal grandfather, along with many others of his generation, had moved to Algeria for a better life during the first decades of the 19th century. Hence, he was called —a slang term for French people born in Algeria. His identity and poor background had a substantial effect on his later life. Nevertheless, Camus was a French citizen and enjoyed more rights than Arab and Berber Algerians under indigénat. During his childhood, he developed a love for football and swimming.


title: Albert Camus

text: Under the influence of his teacher Louis Germain, Camus gained a scholarship in 1924 to continue his studies at a prestigious lyceum (secondary school) near Algiers. In 1930, at the age of 17, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Because it is a transmitted disease, he moved out of his home and stayed with his uncle Gustave Acault, a butcher, who influenced the young Camus. It was at that time he turned to philosophy, with the mentoring of his philosophy teacher Jean Grenier. He was impressed by ancient Greek philosophers and Friedrich Nietzsche. During that time, he was only able to study part-time. To earn money, he took odd jobs: as a private tutor, car parts clerk, and assistant at the Meteorological Institute.


title: Albert Camus

text: In 1933, Camus enrolled at the University of Algiers and completed his "licence de philosophie" (BA) in 1936; after presenting his thesis on Plotinus. Camus developed an interest in early Christian philosophers, but Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer had paved the way towards pessimism and atheism. Camus also studied novelist-philosophers such as Stendhal, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Franz Kafka. In 1933, he also met Simone Hié, then a partner of a friend of Camus, who would become his first wife.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus played goalkeeper for the Racing Universitaire d'Alger junior team from 1928 to 1930. The sense of team spirit, fraternity, and common purpose appealed to him enormously. In match reports, he was often praised for playing with passion and courage. Any football ambitions, however, disappeared when he contracted tuberculosis. Camus drew parallels among football, human existence, morality, and personal identity. For him, the simplistic morality of football contradicted the complicated morality imposed by authorities such as the state and Church.


title: Albert Camus

text: In 1934, aged 20, Camus was in a relationship with Simone Hié. Simone had an addiction to morphine, a drug she used to ease her menstrual pains. His uncle Gustave did not approve of the relationship, but Camus married Hié to help her fight her addiction. He subsequently discovered she was in a relationship with her doctor at the same time and the couple later divorced.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus joined the French Communist Party (PCF) in early 1935. He saw it as a way to "fight inequalities between Europeans and 'natives' in Algeria," even though he was not a Marxist. He explained: "We might see communism as a springboard and asceticism that prepares the ground for more spiritual activities." Camus left the PCF a year later. In 1936, the independence-minded Algerian Communist Party (PCA) was founded, and Camus joined it after his mentor Grenier advised him to do so. Camus's main role within the PCA was to organise the "Théâtre du Travail" ("Workers' Theatre"). Camus was also close to the "Parti du Peuple Algérien" (Algerian People's Party (PPA)), which was a moderate anti-colonialist/nationalist party. As tensions in the interwar period escalated, the Stalinist PCA and PPA broke ties. Camus was expelled from the PCA for refusing to toe the party line. This series of events sharpened his belief in human dignity. Camus's mistrust of bureaucracies that aimed for efficiency instead of justice grew. He continued his involvement with theatre and renamed his group "Théâtre de l'Equipe" ("Theatre of the Team"). Some of his scripts were the basis for his later novels.


title: Albert Camus

text: In 1938, Camus began working for the leftist newspaper "Alger républicain" (founded by Pascal Pia) as he had strong anti-fascist feelings, and the rise of fascist regimes in Europe was worrying him. By then, Camus had developed strong feelings against authoritative colonialism as he witnessed the harsh treatment of the Arabs and Berbers by French authorities. "Alger républicain" was banned in 1940 and Camus flew to Paris to take a new job at "Paris-Soir" as editor-in-chief. In Paris, he almost completed his "first cycle" of works dealing with the absurd and the meaningless—the novel "L'Étranger" ("The Outsider" (UK), or "The Stranger" (US)), the philosophical essay "Le Mythe de Sisyphe" ("The Myth of Sisyphus") and the play "Caligula". Each cycle consisted of a novel, an essay and a theatrical play.


title: Albert Camus

text: Soon after Camus moved to Paris, the outbreak of World War II began to affect France. Camus volunteered to join the army but was not accepted because he once had tuberculosis. As the Germans were marching towards Paris, Camus fled. He was laid off from "Paris-Soir" and ended up in Lyon, where he married pianist and mathematician Francine Faure on 3 December 1940. Camus and Faure moved back to Algeria (Oran) where he taught in primary schools. Because of his tuberculosis, he moved to the French Alps on medical advice. There he began writing his second cycle of works, this time dealing with revolt—a novel "La Peste" ("The Plague") and a play "Le Malentendu" ("The Misunderstanding"). By 1943 he was known because of his earlier work. He returned to Paris where he met and became friends with Jean-Paul Sartre. He also became part of a circle of intellectuals including Simone de Beauvoir, André Breton, and others. Among them was the actress María Casares, who would later have an affair with Camus.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus took an active role in the underground resistance movement against the Germans during the French Occupation. Upon his arrival in Paris, he started working as a journalist and editor of the banned newspaper "Combat". He continued writing for the paper after the liberation of France. Camus used a pseudonym for his "Combat" articles and used false ID cards to avoid being captured. During that period he composed four "Lettres à un Ami Allemand" ("Letters to a German Friend"), explaining why resistance was necessary.


title: Albert Camus

text: After the War, Camus lived in Paris with Faure, who gave birth to twins, Catherine and Jean, in 1945. Camus was now a celebrated writer known for his role in the Resistance. He gave lectures at various universities in the United States and Latin America during two separate trips. He also visited Algeria once more, only to leave disappointed by the continued oppressive colonial policies, which he had warned about many times. During this period he completed the second cycle of his work, with the essay "L'Homme révolté" ("The Rebel"). Camus attacked totalitarian communism while advocating libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism. Upsetting many of his colleagues and contemporaries in France with his rejection of communism, the book brought about the final split with Sartre. His relations with the Marxist Left deteriorated further during the Algerian War.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus was a strong supporter of European integration in various marginal organisations working towards that end. In 1944, he founded the "Comité français pour la féderation européenne"—(CFFE (French Committee for the European Federation))—declaring that Europe "can only evolve along the path of economic progress, democracy, and peace if the nation-states become a federation." In 1947–48, he founded the "Groupes de Liaison Internationale" (GLI) a trade union movement in the context of revolutionary syndicalism ("syndicalisme révolutionnaire"). His main aim was to express the positive side of surrealism and existentialism, rejecting the negativity and the nihilism of André Breton. Camus also raised his voice against the Soviet intervention in Hungary and the totalitarian tendencies of Franco's regime in Spain.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus had numerous affairs, particularly an irregular and eventually public affair with the Spanish-born actress María Casares, with whom he had extensive correspondence. Faure did not take this affair lightly. She had a mental breakdown and needed hospitalisation in the early 1950s. Camus, who felt guilty, withdrew from public life and was slightly depressed for some time.


title: Albert Camus

text: In 1957, Camus received the news that he was to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. This came as a shock to him. He was anticipating André Malraux would win the prestigious award. At age 44, he was the second-youngest recipient of the prize, after Rudyard Kipling, who was 42. After this he began working on his autobiography "Le Premier Homme" ("The First Man") in an attempt to examine "moral learning". He also turned to the theatre once more. Financed by the money he received with his Nobel Prize, he adapted and directed for the stage Dostoyevsky's novel "Demons". The play opened in January 1959 at the Antoine Theatre in Paris and was a critical success.


title: Albert Camus

text: During these years, he published posthumously the works of the philosopher Simone Weil, in the series ""Espoir"" ("Hope") which he had founded for Éditions Gallimard. Weil had great influence on his philosophy, since he saw her writings as an "antidote" to nihilism. Camus described her as "the only great spirit of our times".


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus died on 4 January 1960 at the age of 46, in a car accident near Sens, in Le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin. He had spent the New Year's holiday of 1960 at his house in Lourmarin, Vaucluse with his family, and his publisher Michel Gallimard of Éditions Gallimard, along with Gallimard's wife, Janine, and daughter. Camus's wife and children went back to Paris by train on 2 January, but Camus decided to return in Gallimard's luxurious Facel Vega FVS. The car crashed into a plane tree on a long straight stretch of the Route nationale 5 (now the RN 6 or D606). Camus, who was in the passenger seat, died instantly. Gallimard died a few days later, although his wife and daughter were unharmed. There has been speculation that Camus was assassinated by the KGB because of his criticism of Soviet abuses.


title: Albert Camus

text: 144 pages of a handwritten manuscript entitled "Le premier Homme" ("The First Man") were found in the wreckage. Camus had predicted that this unfinished novel based on his childhood in Algeria would be his finest work. Camus was buried in the Lourmarin Cemetery, Vaucluse, France, where he had lived. His friend Sartre read a eulogy, paying tribute to Camus's heroic "stubborn humanism". William Faulkner wrote his obituary, saying, "When the door shut for him he had already written on this side of it that which every artist who also carries through life with him that one same foreknowledge and hatred of death, is hoping to do: I was here."


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus's first publication was a play called "Révolte dans les Asturies" ("Revolt in the Asturias") written with three friends in May 1936. The subject was the 1934 revolt by Spanish miners that was brutally suppressed by the Spanish government resulting in 1,500 to 2,000 deaths. In May 1937 he wrote his first book, "L'Envers et l'Endroit" ("Betwixt and Between", also translated as "The Wrong Side and the Right Side"). Both were published by Edmond Charlot's small publishing house.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus separated his work into three cycles. Each cycle consisted of a novel, an essay, and a play. The first was the cycle of the absurd consisting of "L'Étranger", "Le Mythe de Sysiphe", and "Caligula". The second was the cycle of the revolt which included "La Peste" ("The Plague"), "L'Homme révolté" ("The Rebel"), and "Les Justes" ("The Just Assassins"). The third, the cycle of the love, consisted of "Nemesis". Each cycle was an examination of a theme with the use of a pagan myth and including biblical motifs.


title: Albert Camus

text: The books in the first cycle were published between 1942 and 1944, but the theme was conceived earlier, at least as far back as 1936. With this cycle, Camus aims to pose a question on the human condition, discuss the world as an absurd place, and warn humanity of the consequences of totalitarianism.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus began his work on the second cycle while he was in Algeria, in the last months of 1942, just as the Germans were reaching North Africa. In the second cycle, Camus used Prometheus, who is depicted as a revolutionary humanist, to highlight the nuances between revolution and rebellion. He analyses various aspects of rebellion, its metaphysics, its connection to politics, and examines it under the lens of modernity, of historicity and the absence of a God.


title: Albert Camus

text: After receiving the Nobel Prize, Camus gathered, clarified, and published his pacifist leaning views at "Actuelles III: Chronique algérienne 1939–1958" ("Algerian Chronicles"). He then decided to distance himself from the Algerian War as he found the mental burden too heavy. He turned to theatre and the third cycle which was about love and the goddess Nemesis.


title: Albert Camus

text: Two of Camus's works were published posthumously. The first entitled "La mort heureuse" ("A Happy Death") (1970), features a character named Patrice Mersault, comparable to "The Stranger"s Meursault. There is scholarly debate about the relationship between the two books. The second was an unfinished novel, "Le Premier homme" ("The First Man") (1995), which Camus was writing before he died. It was an autobiographical work about his childhood in Algeria and its publication in 1994 sparked a widespread reconsideration of Camus's allegedly unrepentant colonialism.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus was a moralist; he claimed morality should guide politics. While he did not deny that morals change over time, he rejected the classical Marxist view that historical material relations define morality.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus was also strongly critical of Marxism-Leninism, especially in the case of the Soviet Union, which he considered totalitarian. Camus rebuked those sympathetic to the Soviet model and their "decision to call total servitude freedom". A proponent of libertarian socialism, he claimed the USSR was not socialist, and the United States was not liberal. His critique of the USSR caused him to clash with others on the political left, most notably with his on-again, off-again friend Jean-Paul Sartre.


title: Albert Camus

text: Active in the French Resistance to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, Camus wrote for and edited the Resistance journal "Combat". Of the French collaboration with the German occupiers, he wrote: "Now the only moral value is courage, which is useful here for judging the puppets and chatterboxes who pretend to speak in the name of the people." After France's liberation, Camus remarked, "This country does not need a Talleyrand, but a Saint-Just." The reality of the postwar tribunals soon changed his mind: Camus publicly reversed himself and became a lifelong opponent of capital punishment.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus had anarchist sympathies, which intensified in the 1950s, when he came to believe that the Soviet model was morally bankrupt. Camus was firmly against any kind of exploitation, authority, property, the State, and centralization. He, however, opposed revolution, separating the rebel from the revolutionary and believing that the belief in "absolute truth", most often assuming the guise of history or reason, inspires the revolutionary and leads to tragic results. He believes that rebellion is spurred by our outrage over the world's lack of transcendent significance, while political rebellion is our response to attacks against the dignity and autonomy of the individual. Camus opposed political violence, tolerating it only in rare and very narrowly defined instances, as well as revolutionary terror which he accused of sacrificing innocent lives on the altar of history.


title: Albert Camus

text: Philosophy professor David Sherman considers Camus an anarcho-syndicalist. Graeme Nicholson considers Camus an existentialist anarchist.


title: Albert Camus

text: The anarchist André Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting of the Cercle des Étudiants Anarchistes ("Anarchist Student Circle") in 1948 as a sympathiser familiar with anarchist thought. Camus wrote for anarchist publications such as "Le Libertaire" (The Libertarian), "La Révolution prolétarienne" (The Proletarian Revolution), and "Solidaridad Obrera" ("Workers' Solidarity"), the organ of the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) ("National Confederation of Labor").


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus kept a neutral stance during the Algerian Revolution (1954–62). While he was against the violence of the National Liberation Front (FLN) he acknowledged the injustice and brutalities imposed by colonialist France. He was supportive of Pierre Mendès' Unified Socialist Party (PSU) and its approach to the crisis; Mendes advocated reconciliation. Camus also supported a like-minded Algerian militant, Aziz Kessous. Camus traveled to Algeria to negotiate a truce between the two belligerents but was met with distrust by all parties. In one, often misquoted incident, Camus confronted an Algerian critic during his 1957 Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Stockholm, rejecting the false equivalence of justice with revolutionary terrorism: "People are now planting bombs in the tramways of Algiers. My mother might be on one of those tramways. If that is justice, then I prefer my mother." Camus's critics have labelled the response as reactionary and a result of a colonialist attitude.


title: Albert Camus

text: He was sharply critical of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the 1950s, Camus devoted his efforts to human rights. In 1952, he resigned from his work for UNESCO when the UN accepted Spain, under the leadership of the caudillo General Francisco Franco, as a member. Camus maintained his pacifism and resisted capital punishment anywhere in the world. He wrote an essay against capital punishment in collaboration with Arthur Koestler, the writer, intellectual, and founder of the League Against Capital Punishment entitled "Réflexions sur la peine capitale" (Reflections on capital punishment), published by Calmann-Levy in 1957.


title: Albert Camus

text: Born in Algeria to French parents, Camus was familiar with the institutional racism of France against Arabs and Berbers, but he was not part of a rich elite. He lived in very poor conditions as a child but was a citizen of France and as such was entitled to citizens' rights; members of the country's Arab and Berber majority were not.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus was a vocal advocate of the "new Mediterranean Culture". This was his vision of embracing the multi-ethnicity of the Algerian people, in opposition to "Latiny", a popular pro-fascist and antisemitic ideology among other "Pieds-Noirs"—or French or Europeans born in Algeria. For Camus, this vision encapsulated the Hellenic humanism which survived among ordinary people around the Mediterranean Sea. His 1938 address on "The New Mediterranean Culture" represents Camus's most systematic statement of his views at this time. Camus also supported the Blum–Viollette proposal to grant Algerians full French citizenship in a manifesto with arguments defending this assimilative proposal on radical egalitarian grounds. In 1939, Camus wrote a stinging series of articles for the "Alger républicain" on the atrocious living conditions of the inhabitants of the Kabylie highlands. He advocated for economic, educational and political reforms as a matter of emergency.


title: Albert Camus

text: In 1945, following the Sétif and Guelma massacre after Arab revolts against French mistreatment, Camus was one of only a few mainland journalists to visit the colony. He wrote a series of articles reporting on conditions, and advocating for French reforms and concessions to the demands of the Algerian people.


title: Albert Camus

text: When the Algerian War began in 1954, Camus was confronted with a moral dilemma. He identified with the "Pieds-Noirs" such as his own parents and defended the French government's actions against the revolt. He argued the Algerian uprising was an integral part of the "new Arab imperialism" led by Egypt, and an "anti-Western" offensive orchestrated by Russia to "encircle Europe" and "isolate the United States". Although favoring greater Algerian autonomy or even federation, though not full-scale independence, he believed the "Pieds-Noirs" and Arabs could co-exist. During the war, he advocated a civil truce that would spare the civilians. It was rejected by both sides who regarded it as foolish. Behind the scenes, he began working for imprisoned Algerians who faced the death penalty. His position drew much criticism from the left and later postcolonial literary critics, such as Edward Said, who were opposed to European imperialism, and charged that Camus's novels and short stories are plagued with colonial depictions - or conscious erasures - of Algeria's Arab population. In their eyes, Camus was no longer the defender of the oppressed.


title: Albert Camus

text: Even though Camus is mostly connected to absurdism, he is routinely categorized as an existentialist, a term he rejected on several occasions.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus himself said his philosophical origins lay in ancient Greek philosophy, Nietzsche, and 17th-century moralists whereas existentialism arises from 19th- and early 20th-century philosophy such as Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, and Heidegger. He also said his work, "The Myth of Sisyphus", was a criticism of various aspects of existentialism. Camus was rejecting existentialism as a philosophy, but his critique was mostly focused on Sartrean existentialism, and to a lesser extent on religious existentialism. He thought that the importance of history held by Marx and Sartre was incompatible with his belief in human freedom. David Sherman and others also suggest the rivalry between Sartre and Camus also played a part in his rejection of existentialism. David Simpson argues further that his humanism and belief in human nature set him apart from the existentialist doctrine that existence precedes essence.


title: Albert Camus

text: On the other hand, Camus focused most of his philosophy around existential questions. The absurdity of life, the inevitable ending (death) is highlighted in his acts. His belief was that the absurd—life being void of meaning, or man's inability to know that meaning if it were to exist—was something that man should embrace. His anti-Christianity, his commitment to individual moral freedom and responsibility are only a few of the similarities with other existential writers. More importantly, Camus addressed one of the fundamental questions of existentialism: the problem of suicide. He wrote: "There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide." Camus viewed the question of suicide as arising naturally as a solution to the absurdity of life.


title: Albert Camus

text: Many existentialist writers have addressed the Absurd, each with their own interpretation of what it is and what makes it important. Kierkegaard explains that the absurdity of religious truths prevents us from reaching God rationally. Sartre recognizes the absurdity of individual experience. Camus's thoughts on the Absurd begin with his first cycle of books and the literary essay "The Myth of Sisyphus", ("Le Mythe de Sisyphe"), his major work on the subject. In 1942, he published the story of a man living an absurd life in "L'Étranger". He also wrote a play about the Roman emperor Caligula, pursuing an absurd logic, which was not performed until 1945. His early thoughts appeared in his first collection of essays, "L'Envers et l'endroit" ("Betwixt and Between") in 1937. Absurd themes were expressed with more sophistication in his second collection of essays, "Noces" ("Nuptials") in 1938. In these essays, Camus reflects on the experience of the Absurd. Aspects of the notion of the Absurd can be found in "The Plague".


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus follows Sartre's definition of the Absurd: "That which is meaningless. Thus man's existence is absurd because his contingency finds no external justification". The Absurd is created because man, who is placed in an unintelligent universe, realises that human values are not founded on a solid external component; or as Camus himself explains, the Absurd is the result of the "confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world." Even though absurdity is inescapable, Camus does not drift towards nihilism. But the realization of absurdity leads to the question: Why should someone continue to live? Suicide is an option that Camus firmly dismisses as the renunciation of human values and freedom. Rather, he proposes we accept that absurdity is a part of our lives and live with it.


title: Albert Camus

text: The turning point in Camus's attitude to the Absurd occurs in a collection of four letters to an anonymous German friend, written between July 1943 and July 1944. The first was published in the "Revue Libre" in 1943, the second in the "Cahiers de Libération" in 1944, and the third in the newspaper "Libertés", in 1945. The four letters were published as "Lettres à un ami allemand" ("Letters to a German Friend") in 1945, and were included in the collection "Resistance, Rebellion, and Death".


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus regretted the continued reference to himself as a "philosopher of the absurd". He showed less interest in the Absurd shortly after publishing "Le Mythe de Sisyphe". To distinguish his ideas, scholars sometimes refer to the Paradox of the Absurd, when referring to "Camus's Absurd".


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus is known for articulating the case for revolting against any kind of oppression, injustice, or whatever disrespects the human condition. He is cautious enough, however, to set the limits on the rebellion. "L'Homme révolté" ("The Rebel") explains in detail his thoughts on the issue. There, he builds upon the absurd (described in "The Myth of Sisyphus") but goes further. In the introduction, where he examines the metaphysics of rebellion, he concludes with the phrase "I revolt, therefore we exist" implying the recognition of a common human condition. Camus also delineates the difference between revolution and rebellion and notices that history has shown that the rebel's revolution might easily end up as an oppressive regime; he therefore places importance on the morals accompanying the revolution. Camus poses a crucial question: Is it possible for humans to act in an ethical and meaningful manner, in a silent universe? According to him the answer is yes, as the experience and awareness of the Absurd creates the moral values and also sets the limits of our actions. Camus separates the modern form of rebellion into two modes. First, there is the metaphysical rebellion, which is "the movement by which man protests against his condition and against the whole of creation." The other mode, historical rebellion, is the attempt to materialize the abstract spirit of metaphysical rebellion and change the world. In this attempt, the rebel must balance between the evil of the world and the intrinsic evil which every revolt carries, and not cause any unjustifiable suffering.


title: Albert Camus

text: Camus's novels and philosophical essays are still influential. After his death, interest in Camus followed the rise (and diminution) of the New Left. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, interest in his alternative road to communism resurfaced. He is remembered for his skeptical humanism and his support for political tolerance, dialogue, and civil rights.


title: Albert Camus

text: Although Camus has been linked to anti-Soviet communism, reaching as far as anarcho-syndicalism, some neo-liberals have tried to associate him with their policies; for instance, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested that his remains be moved to the Panthéon, an idea that was criticised by Camus's surviving family and angered many on the Left.


Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a 1997 fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the "Harry Potter" series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school and with the help of his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.


title: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

text: The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States the following year by Scholastic Corporation under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the "New York Times" list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least 73 other languages and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels. The novel has sold in excess of 120 million copies, making it the third best-selling novel of all time.


text: Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors; Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter; and the ancient Greek story-teller Homer. While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues, as well as overcoming obstacles like bullies.


text: "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", along with the rest of the "Harry Potter" series, has been attacked by some religious groups and banned in some countries because of accusations that the novels promote witchcraft under the guise of a heroic, moral story. Other religious commentators have written that the book exemplifies important viewpoints, including the power of self-sacrifice and the ways in which people's decisions shape their personalities. The series has been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.


text: Harry Potter lives with his abusive aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and their bullying son, Dudley. On Harry's eleventh birthday, a half-giant named Rubeus Hagrid personally delivers an acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, revealing that Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter, were wizards. When Harry was one year old, an evil and powerful dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, murdered his parents. Harry survived Voldemort's killing curse that rebounded off his forehead and seemingly destroyed the Dark Lord, leaving a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. Unknown to Harry, he is famous in the wizarding world.


text: Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, the hidden wizard commerce and retail section in London. Harry's parents have left him a fortune kept in Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Harry buys school supplies and a wand from Ollivander. The cores of Harry and Lord Voldemort's wands have feathers from the same phoenix bird, making them "brothers". Hagrid gives Harry an owl that he names Hedwig. A month later, Harry boards the Hogwarts Express at King's Cross railway station's secret Platform 9¾. On the journey to Hogwarts, Harry befriends fellow first-year Ron Weasley and meets Hermione Granger, whom the two boys initially dislike. Harry runs afoul of first-year student, Draco Malfoy.


text: At Hogwarts, a magical Sorting Hat sorts the first-years among four school Houses (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin) that best suit their personalities and talents. Draco joins Slytherin, known for dark wizards, while Harry, Ron and Hermione are sorted into Gryffindor.


text: Harry's broomstick flying ability earns him a place on the Gryffindor Quidditch team as the Seeker. Harry comes to dislike Potions master Severus Snape, who favours Slytherin while seeking to fail Harry. Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron into risking expulsion by leaving their common room after curfew. Hermione, unable to stop them, tags along. Realising Malfoy's ruse, they hide in a forbidden corridor and discover a gigantic three-headed dog guarding a trapdoor. Harry and Ron later save Hermione from a troll during the school's Halloween celebration and the three become best friends. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury and suspicious behaviour, Harry, Ron and Hermione believe he is attempting to enter the trapdoor.


text: Hermione warns the boys against investigating further and instead directs Harry's attention to his first Quidditch match. His broomstick's attempts to buck him off and Snape's strange behaviour during the match convinces Hermione he jinxed Harry's broom. Harry receives an anonymous Christmas gift – his father's invisibility cloak. Using it to explore the school, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, which shows what the viewer most desires. Harry sees his parents.


text: The trio read a newspaper report about an attempted robbery at Gringotts Bank and the same vault from which Hagrid retrieved an item for the school's headmaster Albus Dumbledore on the same day. They suspect the object beneath the trapdoor is the philosopher's stone, which grants its user immortality and the ability to turn any metal into pure gold. A forest centaur named Firenze warns Harry that Voldemort is plotting to steal the stone to restore his body. When Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione and Ron fear the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor.


text: A series of obstacles force Ron and Hermione to remain behind while Harry proceeds. Harry encounters Professor Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who reveals that he jinxed Harry's broom and let the troll into the school; Snape was protecting Harry. Voldemort, whose face is attached to the back of Quirrell's head, is using Quirrell to obtain the philosopher's stone. Harry is forced to stand before the Mirror of Erised. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the stone and deposits it into his pocket. Quirrell attempts to seize the stone and kill Harry, but his flesh burns upon contact with him. Harry's scar begins hurting and he passes out.


text: Harry awakens in the school's infirmary. Dumbledore explains Harry survived Voldemort because his mother sacrificing her life for him left a magical protective charm. Quirrell's hatred and greed caused him to burn upon contact with Harry; Voldemort abandoned him to die. Dumbledore reveals he sent Harry the invisibility cloak, while the philosopher's stone, that had been keeping the long-lived Nicolas Flamel alive, has been destroyed to prevent its being stolen. During the school's year-end feast, Gryffindor is awarded the House Cup. Harry returns to the Dursleys at Privet Drive until the next school year.


text: Other members of staff include: the dumpy Herbology teacher and Head of Hufflepuff House Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, the tiny and excitable Charms teacher and Head of Ravenclaw House, the soporific History of Magic teacher, Professor Binns, a ghost who does not seem to have noticed his own death, and Madam Hooch, the Quidditch coach, who is strict, but a considerate and methodical teacher. The poltergeist Peeves wanders around the castle causing trouble wherever he can.


text: In the book, Rowling introduces an eclectic cast of characters. The first character to be introduced is Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle. Most of the actions centre on the eponymous hero Harry Potter, an orphan who escapes his miserable childhood with the Dursley family. Rowling imagined him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard" and says she transferred part of her pain about losing her mother to him. During the book, Harry makes two close friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron is described by Rowling as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him". Rowling has described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness".


text: Rowling also imagined a supporting cast of adults. The headmaster of Hogwarts is the powerful, but kind wizard Albus Dumbledore, who becomes Harry's confidant. Rowling described him as "the epitome of goodness". His right hand is severe Minerva McGonagall, the friendly half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who saved Harry from the Dursley family and the sinister Severus Snape. Professor Quirrell is also featured in the novel.


text: The main antagonists are Draco Malfoy, an elitist, bullying classmate, and Lord Voldemort, the most powerful evil wizard who becomes disembodied when he tries to kill baby Harry. According to a 1999 interview with Rowling, the character of Voldemort was created as a literary foil for Harry and his backstory was intentionally not fleshed-out at first:


text: The book, which was Rowling's debut novel, was written between approximately June 1990 and some time in 1995. In 1990, Jo Rowling, as she preferred to be known, wanted to move with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester and in her words, "One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny, little, black-haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write "Philosopher's Stone" that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product." Then, Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry. Rowling spent six years working on "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and after it was accepted by Bloomsbury, she obtained a grant of £8,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, which enabled her to plan the sequels. She sent the book to an agent and a publisher and then the second agent she approached spent a year trying to sell the book to publishers, most of whom thought it was too long at about 90,000 words. Barry Cunningham, who was building a portfolio of distinctive fantasies by new authors for Bloomsbury Children's Books, recommended accepting the book and the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chief executive said it was "so much better than anything else".


text: Bloomsbury accepted the book, paying Rowling a £2,500 advance and Cunningham sent proof copies to carefully chosen authors, critics and booksellers in order to obtain comments that could be quoted when the book was launched. He was less concerned about the book's length than about its author's name, since the title sounded like a boys' book to him and he believed boys preferred books by male authors. Rowling therefore adopted the pen name J. K. Rowling just before publication.


text: In June 1997, Bloomsbury published "Philosopher's Stone" with an initial print run of 500 copies in hardback, three hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Her original name, "Joanne Rowling", can be found on the copyright page of all British editions until September 1999. (The 1998 first American edition would remove reference to "Joanne" completely.) The short initial print run was standard for first novels and Cunningham hoped booksellers would read the book and recommend it to customers. Examples from this initial print run have sold for as much as US$471,000 in a 2021 Heritage auction. Thomas Taylor created the cover for the first edition.


text: Lindsey Fraser, who had previously supplied one of the blurb comments, wrote what is thought to be the first published review, in "The Scotsman" on 28 June 1997. She described "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" as "a hugely entertaining thriller" and Rowling as "a first-rate writer for children". Another early review, in "The Herald", said: "I have yet to find a child who can put it down." Newspapers outside Scotland started to notice the book, with glowing reviews in "The Guardian" and "The Sunday Times" and in September 1997 "Books for Keeps", a magazine that specialised in children's books, gave the novel four stars out of five. "Sunday Times" said:"comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified", while "The Guardian" called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and "The Scotsman" said it had "all the makings of a classic".


text: In 1997 the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9- to 11-year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. The "Smarties" award, which is voted for by children, made the book well known within six months of publication, while most children's books have to wait for years. The following year, "Philosopher's Stone" won almost all the other major British awards that were decided by children. It was also shortlisted for children's books awards adjudicated by adults, but did not win. Sandra Beckett commented that books that were popular with children were regarded as undemanding and as not of the highest literary standards – for example, the literary establishment disdained the works of Dahl, an overwhelming favourite of children before the appearance of Rowling's books. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 22 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.


text: "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" won two publishing industry awards given for sales rather than literary merit, the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Booksellers' Association / "Bookseller" Author of the Year. By March 1999 UK editions had sold just over 300,000 copies and the story was still the UK's best-selling title in December 2001. A Braille edition was published in May 1998 by the Scottish Braille Press.


text: Platform, from which the Hogwarts Express left London, was commemorated in the real-life King's Cross railway station with a sign and a trolley apparently passing through the wall.


text: Scholastic Corporation bought the US rights at the Bologna Book Fair in April 1997 for US$105,000, an unusually high sum for a children's book. Scholastic's Arthur Levine thought that "philosopher" sounded too archaic for readers and after some discussion (including the proposed title "Harry Potter and the School of Magic"), the American edition was published in September 1998 under the title Rowling suggested, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". Rowling later said that she regretted this change and would have fought it if she had been in a stronger position at the time. Philip Nel has pointed out that the change lost the connection with alchemy and the meaning of some other terms changed in translation, for example from "crumpet" to "muffin". While Rowling accepted the change from both the British English "mum" and Seamus Finnigan's Irish variant "mam" to the American variant "mom" in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", she vetoed this change in the later books, which was then reversed in later editions of "Philosopher's Stone". However, Nel considered that Scholastic's translations were considerably more sensitive than most of those imposed on British English books of the time and that some other changes could be regarded as useful copyedits. Since the UK editions of early titles in the series were published months prior to the American versions, some American readers became familiar with the British English versions owing to having bought them from online retailers.


text: At first the most prestigious reviewers ignored the book, leaving it to book trade and library publications such as "Kirkus Reviews" and "Booklist", which examined it only by the entertainment-oriented criteria of children's fiction. However, more penetrating specialist reviews (such as one by "Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices", which noted complexity, depth and consistency in the world that Rowling had built) attracted the attention of reviewers in major newspapers. Although "The Boston Globe" and Michael Winerip in "The New York Times" complained that the final chapters were the weakest part of the book, they and most other American reviewers gave glowing praise.


text: A year later, the US edition was selected as an American Library Association Notable Book, a "Publishers Weekly" Best Book of 1998 and a New York Public Library 1998 Best Book of the Year and won "Parenting Magazine" Book of the Year Award for 1998, the "School Library Journal" Best Book of the Year and the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. In 2012 it was ranked number 3 on a list of the top 100 children's novels published by "School Library Journal".


text: In August 1999, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" topped the "New York Times" list of best-selling fiction and stayed near the top of the list for much of 1999 and 2000, until the "New York Times" split its list into children's and adult sections under pressure from other publishers who were eager to see their books given higher placings. "Publishers Weekly" report in December 2001 on cumulative sales of children's fiction placed "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" 19th among hardbacks (over 5 million copies) and 7th among paperbacks (over 6.6 million copies).


text: In May 2008, Scholastic announced the creation of a 10th Anniversary Edition of the book that was released on 1 October 2008 to mark the tenth anniversary of the original American release. For the fifteenth anniversary of the books, Scholastic re-released "Sorcerer's Stone", along with the other six novels in the series, with new cover art by Kazu Kibuishi in 2013.


text: By mid-2008, official translations of the book had been published in 67 languages. By November 2017, the book had been translated into 80 languages, the 80th being Lowland Scots. Bloomsbury have published translations in Latin and in Ancient Greek, with the latter being described as "one of the most important pieces of Ancient Greek prose written in many centuries".


text: Philip Nel highlighted the influence of Jane Austen, whom Rowling has greatly admired since the age of twelve. Both novelists greatly encourage re-reading, because details that look insignificant foreshadow important events or characters much later in the story-line – for example Sirius Black is briefly mentioned near the beginning of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", and then becomes a major character in the third to fifth books. Like Austen's heroines, Harry often has to re-examine his ideas near the ends of books. Some social behaviour in the "Harry Potter" books is reminiscent of Austen, for example the excited communal reading of letters. Both authors satirise social behaviour and give characters names that express their personalities. However in Nel's opinion Rowling's humour is more based on caricature and the names she invents are more like those found in Charles Dickens's stories, and Amanda Cockrell noted that many of these express their owners' traits through allusions that run from ancient Roman mythology to eighteenth-century German literature. Rowling, like the Narnia series' author C. S. Lewis, thinks there is no rigid distinction between stories for children and for adults. Nel also noted that, like many good writers for children, Rowling combines literary genresfantasy, young adult fiction, boarding school stories, "Bildungsroman" and many others.


text: Some reviewers compared "Philosopher's Stone" to the stories of Roald Dahl, who died in 1990. Many writers since the 1970s had been hailed as his successor, but none had attained anything near his popularity with children and, in a poll conducted shortly after the launch of "Philosopher's Stone", seven of the ten most popular children's books were by Dahl, including the one in top place. The only other really popular children's author of the late 1990s was an American, R. L. Stine. Some of the story elements in "Philosopher's Stone" resembled parts of Dahl's stories. For example, the hero of "James and the Giant Peach" lost his parents and had to live with a pair of unpleasant auntsone fat and one thin rather like Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, who treated Harry as a servant. However Harry Potter was a distinctive creation, able to take on the responsibilities of an adult while remaining a child inside.


text: Librarian Nancy Knapp and marketing professor Stephen Brown noted the liveliness and detail of descriptions, especially of shop scenes such as Diagon Alley. Tad Brennan commented that Rowling's writing resembles that of Homer: "rapid, plain, and direct in expression." Stephen King admired "the sort of playful details of which only British fantasists seem capable" and concluded that they worked because Rowling enjoys a quick giggle and then moves briskly forward.


text: Nicholas Tucker described the early "Harry Potter" books as looking back to Victorian and Edwardian children's stories: Hogwarts was an old-style boarding school in which the teachers addressed pupils formally by their surnames and were most concerned with the reputations of the houses with which they were associated; characters' personalities were plainly shown by their appearances, starting with the Dursleys; evil or malicious characters were to be crushed rather than reformed, including Argus Filch's cat Mrs Norris; and the hero, a mistreated orphan who found his true place in life, was charismatic and good at sports, but considerate and protective towards the weak. Several other commentators have stated that the books present a highly stratified society including many social stereotypes. However Karin Westerman drew parallels with 1990s Britain: a class system that was breaking down but defended by those whose power and status it upheld; the multi-ethnic composition of Hogwarts' students; the racial tensions between the various intelligent species; and school bullying.


text: Susan Hall wrote that there is no rule of law in the books, as the actions of Ministry of Magic officials are unconstrained by laws, accountability or any kind of legal challenge. This provides an opportunity for Voldemort to offer his own horrific version of order. As a side-effect Harry and Hermione, who were brought up in the highly regulated Muggle world, find solutions by thinking in ways unfamiliar to wizards. For example, Hermione notes that one obstacle to finding the Philosopher's Stone is a test of logic rather than magical power, and that most wizards have no chance of solving it.


text: Nel suggested that the unflattering characterisation of the extremely conventional, status-conscious, materialistic Dursleys was Rowling's reaction to the family policies of the British government in the early 1990s, which treated the married heterosexual couple as the "preferred norm", while the author was a single mother. Harry's relationships with adult and juvenile wizards are based on affection and loyalty. This is reflected in his happiness whenever he is a temporary member of the Weasley family throughout the series, and in his treatment of first Rubeus Hagrid and later Remus Lupin and Sirius Black as father-figures.


text: The second book, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and later, in the US on 2 June 1999. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was then published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version. It was published worldwide in English on 21 June 2003. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was published on 16 July 2005 and sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release. The seventh and final novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", was published on 21 July 2007. The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.


text: An illustrated version of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was released on 6 October 2015, with illustrations by Jim Kay. The book carries over 100 illustrations and will be followed by illustrated versions of all seven books from the series by the same artist.


text: In May 2020, a reading podcast by Spotify was created and entitled "Harry Potter at Home: Readings". Each chapter is narrated by a celebrity guest from the "Harry Potter" and "Wizarding World" franchises.


text: In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights of the first two "Harry Potter" books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million. Rowling demanded that the principal cast be kept strictly British, but allowed for the casting of Irish actors such as Richard Harris as Dumbledore and of foreign actors as characters of the same nationalities in later books. After extensive casting, filming began in September 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London, with production ending in July 2001. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was released in London on 14 November 2001. Reviewers' comments were positive, as reflected by an 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and by a score of 64% at Metacritic, representing "generally favourable reviews".


text: Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2001 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, that were loosely based on the film and book:


text: Writers on education and business subjects have used the book as an . Writing about clinical teaching in medical schools, Jennifer Conn contrasted Snape's technical expertise with his intimidating behaviour towards students. Quidditch coach Madam Hooch on the other hand, illustrated useful techniques in the teaching of physical skills, including breaking down complex actions into sequences of simple ones and helping students to avoid common errors. Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory".


text: Stephen Brown noted that the early "Harry Potter" books, especially "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", were a runaway success despite inadequate and poorly organised marketing. Brown advised marketing executives to be less preoccupied with rigorous statistical analyses and the "analysis, planning, implementation, and control" model of management. Instead he recommended that they should treat the stories as "a marketing masterclass", full of enticing products and brand names. For example, a real-world analogue of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans was introduced under licence in 2000 by toymaker Hasbro.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: Erin Elair Moriarty (born June 24, 1994) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Annie January / Starlight in the Amazon Prime Video series "The Boys" (2019–present). Prior to "The Boys", she had notable roles in Netflix's "Jessica Jones" (2015), HBO's "True Detective" (2014), and ABC's "Red Widow" (2013). Outside of television, she has appeared in acclaimed independent films "The Kings of Summer" and "Captain Fantastic", among others.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: Moriarty was born and raised in New York City. She began acting at 11 years old, starring as Annie in a 2005 community theater production of "Annie". Upon graduation from high school, she deferred attending college to pursue acting.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: Moriarty was cast in her first professional roles as a teenager, acting in the television series "One Life to Live" and "". Her first roles of note were as Vince Vaughn's daughter in the 2012 comedy film "The Watch;" Kelly, the love interest of Nick Robinson's character, in the 2013 indie comedy "The Kings of Summer"; and Natalie, "a daughter destined to find out who killed her father, who once had ties to organized crime", in the ABC drama series "Red Widow".


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: She then was cast in a supporting role in the sci-fi film "After the Dark", which premiered in 2013, and had a recurring role on first season of "True Detective" as Audrey Hart, the problem child of Woody Harrelson's character. In September 2014, Erin Moriarty was named one of the best actors under twenty years of age by IndieWire. The same year she was cast in "Ouija", but her scenes were removed from the final film, following re-shoots.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: In February 2015, it was announced she joined the main cast of Netflix's "Jessica Jones". In the show's first season, which was released in November 2015, Moriarty played Hope, a college student whose life is ruined by Kilgrave, the main villain.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: She appeared in "Blood Father", a 2016 film starring Mel Gibson. Her role as Gibson's daughter in "Blood Father" received praise from critics such as Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times", Alonso Duralde of TheWrap, and Owen Gleiberman of "Variety", but Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of "The A.V. Club" felt she was unconvincing and Allen Salkin of the "Daily News" felt she was overshadowed by the likes of Gibson and William H. Macy. Later that year, she starred in the horror film "Within". Moriarty also had a supporting role in the critically acclaimed film "Captain Fantastic", in which she plays the love interest of George MacKay's character. For this film, she was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: In June 2016, she was cast in lead role the LD Entertainment feature film "The Miracle Season" along with Danika Yarosh and Helen Hunt; the film was released in 2018. Also in 2018, she appeared in the films "The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir" and "Monster Party". Later that year, she appeared in "Driven" which centers around the sting operation which brought down auto mogul John DeLorean; the movie premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival and was filmed in Puerto Rico in 2017 during Hurricane Maria.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: In December 2017, she was cast as Annie January / Starlight in "The Boys", Amazon Studios loosely based adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic book of the same name. The series was released July 2019. The show's second season premiered in September 2020 with a third season initially scheduled to be released in 2021, but was delayed until June 3, 2022.


title: Erin Moriarty (actress)

text: The second season premiere of " The Boys" featured an original song "Never Truly Vanish" on which Moriarty provided the vocals. The song was later released on the series' second season soundtrack on October 9, 2020.


title: Hadestown

text: Hadestown is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Anaïs Mitchell. It tells a version of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice, a young girl looking for something to eat, goes to work in a hellish industrial underworld to escape mythically-inspired climate-change induced poverty before her poor singer-songwriter lover Orpheus comes to rescue her, and together they show others the way to escape.


title: Hadestown

text: The original version of the musical premiered in the town of Barre, Vermont, in 2006. There was also a production in Vergennes in the same year and a tour between Vermont and Massachusetts in 2007. Then Mitchell, unsure about the future of the musical, turned it into a concept album, released in 2010.


title: Hadestown

text: In 2012, Mitchell met director Rachel Chavkin, and the two started to rework the stage production, with additional songs and dialogue. The new version of the musical, developed for the stage and directed by Chavkin, premiered Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop on May 6, 2016, and ran through July 31. Following productions in Edmonton and London, the show premiered in previews on Broadway in March 2019.


title: Hadestown

text: The Broadway production opened to critical acclaim and received numerous awards and nominations. At the 73rd Tony Awards, "Hadestown" received 14 nominations (the most for the evening) and won eight of them, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.


title: Hadestown

text: The story begins with the Greek god Hermes introducing the characters ("Road to Hell"). This is followed by Eurydice and the Fates describing the harsh weather and famine of the setting ("Any Way the Wind Blows"). Orpheus, Hermes's ward, introduces himself to Eurydice and asks her to marry him ("Come Home With Me"). Eurydice is doubtful as they both live in poverty. Orpheus tells her that he is writing a song to make spring come again, and they will no longer have to struggle ("Wedding Song").


title: Hadestown

text: Orpheus sings the story of Hades and Persephone ("Epic I"). Persephone arrives in the world above and celebrates summertime ("Livin' it Up on Top"), while Eurydice begins to truly fall in love with Orpheus ("All I've Ever Known"). Hades comes early to collect Persephone, and she voices her misery of having to return to Hadestown, Hades's underground factory. Despite hearing about the never-ending labor endured by the factory workers, Eurydice is intrigued by the rich praises sung by the Fates as well as the promise of protection that Hadestown offers ("Way Down Hadestown"). The cold weather returns and Eurydice searches for food and firewood, urging Orpheus to finish his song ("A Gathering Storm"). Orpheus continues working on his song ("Epic II"), while Persephone and Hades argue ("Chant").


title: Hadestown

text: Hades leaves Hadestown to find someone who will appreciate its safety and security. He comes across a desperate Eurydice and invites her to come to Hadestown ("Hey, Little Songbird"). The Fates appear and urge Eurydice to join him ("When the Chips are Down"). With the cold surging on and an empty stomach, Eurydice sees no other choice except to follow Hades. She sings her goodbyes to Orpheus before heading to Hadestown as The Fates chastise the audience for judging her for choosing self-interest over love ("Gone, I'm Gone"). Orpheus discovers Eurydice's disappearance, and decides to rescue her from Hadestown. He sets off on his journey using Hermes's instructions on how to get to Hadestown without the use of the train ("Wait for Me"). Eurydice arrives in Hadestown and signs the contract, officially becoming a worker ("Why We Build the Wall").