Imperial War Museum London

Imperial War Museum London Review

Despite its name this museum of 20th- and 21st-century warfare (one of five IWM branches around the country) does not glorify either Empire or bloodshed but emphasizes understanding through evoking the impact of war on citizens and soldiers alike. There's an impressive amount of hardware—including a Battle of Britain Spitfire, a German V2 rocket, tanks, guns, and submarines—along with accompanying interactive material at the main entrance, from where you can peel off to the museum's various sections. In the World War I gallery, the "Trench Experience" uses sights, sounds, and smells to re-create the grimness of life in No Man's Land, while an equally effective "Blitz Experience" in the World War II galleries provides a 10-minute glimpse of an air raid, putting you on a "street" filled with acrid smoke as sirens wail and searchlights glare. Also in the World War II galleries is an extensive and haunting "Holocaust Exhibition," while "Conflict Since 1945" documents the fact that there has been fighting somewhere in the world almost continuously since the war's end. Other galleries exhibit war art (by Henry Moore, John Singer Sargent, Stanley Spencer, and William Orpen, to name a few), as well as poetry, photography, and documentary film footage relating to conflicts from World War I to the present day.