Imperial War Museum: Review

On the 17th December, I went with a friend to the Imperial War Museum, London. It was the first time I’ve ever been, despite having lived in London my whole life- not for any particular reason. We were supposed to go whilst still in Junior School, but the trip was cancelled, and in Year Nine half of my year went to IWM and half to the London Docklands museum. Unfortunately, I ended up going to the Docklands museum (unfortunate because I had already been a few times with my dad, who works near it).

So this visit was a rare first for me, because I’ve been to most of the other history museums in London. I had high expectations considering the fact it’s supposed to be one of the best, and I was not disappointed.

The original reason for our visit was to hopefully take part in an object handling session. We both want to do History (or History and Politics in my case) at university and thought this would give us a good experience regarding researching and learning about history from the primary sources. Sadly, we couldn’t actually find the session despite the map saying it would be on the ground floor, but we ended up spending hours in the exhibits anyway so it wasn’t too much of a loss.

We first went to the World War One exhibit, which I would say is not one for someone who only wants a vague overview of the war. There were many, many objects, each with their own in-depth description- fascinating, but expect to be there for a while if you’re one for reading every paragraph. They had a broad range of perspectives, from British to Russian to German, which gave a great chance to learn more about the war from the other side. I particularly liked the German propaganda posters that tested out what remains of my GCSE German knowledge.

We skipped the World War Two floor and moved straight onto the post-1945 floor. We learnt about the Cold War for GCSE history and will learn about Britain from 1951 onwards for A Level so this is particularly relevant for our courses, but it’s also just a very interesting and turbulent period of history. The rapid technological advancement and change in international relations made this floor fascinating, seeing oh-so-familiar objects like Daily Mail copies behind sheets of glass makes them feel much more alien. I for one never thought the Daily Mail, which can’t even be used as a source on Wikipedia because of its unreliability, would be part of a complex exhibit in one of the most respected museums in London. Then again, I suppose it does count as a contemporary source. The exhibit is striking in that it has such a breadth of different events, from the IRA to the war in Yugoslavia, all showcased in detail and with a good balance between differing perspectives.

Overall, it was a great day and I really enjoyed the visit. I would say that the WWI exhibit might not be so great for the jumpy like me, because there are unexpected sound effects in some areas. The rest of the museum was fine for this, though, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in history. I normally prefer political history to military, but the museum was amazing and would be perfect for a day out.

#review #museum #history #militaryhistory #imperialwarmuseum #WWI #coldwar #1910s #1950s