Scholarly interest in the emotional history of modern war has grown exponentially in recent decades, reflecting both profound changes in the human experience of war over the twentieth century and the expanding availability of sources for studying the history of war ‘from below’. This module explores these changing experiences from the standpoint of soldiers and military veterans, using oral history to investigate how rank-and-file military personnel negotiate the emotional impacts and afterlives of soldiering in twentieth century theatres of war. Combining close reading of seminal theoretical texts with in-depth historical case studies and practical exercises in the analysis of veteran narratives, students will use personal accounts of military service to explore key themes in the emotional history of modern war, including: the impacts of militarisation and war upon the body and mind; the group psychology of violent combat within contrasting types of inter-state, civil and guerrilla conflict; the traumatic afterlives of war and their negotiation through storytelling and memory; and the use of oral history within public histories seeking to transform the human and societal legacies of war. Culminating in an extended oral history case study addressing Britain’s military experience during the Northern Ireland Troubles, War Stories provides students with practical and theoretical knowledge of oral history as a key methodology for studying the human history of war, as well as specialised historical and theoretical understanding of the emotional history of soldering in the twentieth century.