(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Blommaert, Jan; Varis, Piia
In a recent paper, the Australian historian, Martyn Lyons (2013), reviews his attempts to study �history from below�, using what can be called grassroots writing by French and Italian soldiers of the Great War. Lyons remarks that the �First World War produced a flood of letter-writing by peasants whose literary capacity has often been underestimated� (Lyons 2013: 5).