Author: Roger Chickering Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521773522 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 544
Book Description
World War I was the first large-scale industrialized military conflict, and it led to the concept of total war. The essays in this volume analyze the experience of the war in light of this concept's implications, in particular the erosion of distinctions between the military and civilian spheres.
Author: Hunt Tooley Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1137471271 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
We have often heard about the brutal world of the trenches, the willingness of brave young soldiers and the apparent indifference of the generals, but reevaluations of the Great War in previous decades have shown us much more complexity, and in many cases some surprising reconstructions of very standard narratives of the war. The traditional isolation of the battle front from the home front, which historians have tended to observe, has given us an incomplete understanding of both fronts. In this study of Word War I, Hunt Tooley crosses the boundaries of national histories to examine the various connections between the 400-mile-long Western Front and the home fronts of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and the United States. Tooley draws on recent research and the wealth of primary souce material available to provide a broad synthesis of a complex event, and to create a more holistic view of the war - as men stayed in touch with those at home, as governments responded to events on the battlefield, and as writers, poets and artists brought the cultural impulses of Europe to the deadly world of the Western Front. In his clearly-written, wide-ranging study, Tooley argues that the seeds of much of the 20th century may have been planted well before the First World War, but - as many social critics, politicians, soldiers, women's movement leaders, and others predicted - the cultivation of these seeds in war would have a powerful and formative effect on the social, political and cultural processes which shaped the 20th century.
Author: Paddy Griffith Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 184468931X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 205
Book Description
The war on Western Front from 1914 to 1918 remains one of the notoriously great tragedies of the twentieth century. Most people hold it in their minds as a milestone in modern history, yet many of them know less about this devastating clash of nations than they would like—and they would be interested to discover more. Paddy Griffith's short history of the conflict has been written with them in mind. It provides an accessible primer to an enormous and fascinating subject. His account is aimed at an English-speaking readership, and he concentrates on the part played by British Expeditionary Force and the Americans in the conflict. The French and German perspectives are also explained and the wider political and strategic evolution of the war as a whole is laid out as essential background.
Author: Nick Lloyd Publisher: ISBN: 9781324095118 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The Telegraph - Best Books of the Year The Times of London - Best Books of the Year A panoramic history of the savage combat on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 that came to define modern warfare.
Author: Robert Cowley Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks ISBN: 9780812967159 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 530
Book Description
The great war—or the First World War, as most Americans call it—was the true turning point of the century just past. It brought down dynasties and empires, including the Ottoman—one of the roots of our present difficulties. It changed the United States from a bumptious provincial nation into a world power. It made World War II inevitable, and the Cold War as well. Above all, the Great War was history’s first total war, an armed conflict on a world stage between industrialized powers. Robert Cowley has brought together the thirty articles in this book to examine that unnecessary but perhaps inevitable war in its diverse aspects. A number of the subjects covered here are not just unfamiliar but totally fresh. Who originated the term “no-man’s-land” and the word “tank”? What forgotten battles nearly destroyed the French Army in 1915? How did the discovery of a German naval codebook bring the United States into the war? What was the weapon that, for the first time, put a man-made object into the stratosphere? The Great War takes a hard look at the legend of the “Massacre of the Innocents” at Ypres in 1914—an event that became a cornerstone of Nazi mythology. It describes the Gallipoli campaign as it has never been described before—from the Turkish side. Brought to life as well are the horrors of naval warfare, as both British and German sailors experienced them at the Battle of Jutl∧ the near breakdown of the American commander, John H. Pershing; and the rarely told story of the British disaster on the Tigris River in what is now Iraq. Michael Howard chronicles the summer of 1914 and the descent into a war that leaders were actually more afraid to avoid than to join. John Keegan writes about the muddy tragedy of Passchendaele in 1917. Jan Morris details the rise and fall of Sir John Fisher, whom she characterizes as the greatest British admiral since Nelson. Robert Cowley tells the haunting story of the artist Käthe Kollwitz, determined to create a memorial to her dead son. In every way this is a book that does justice to the drama and complexity of the twentieth century’s seminal event. From the Hardcover edition.
Author: Robin Neillands Publisher: Constable ISBN: Category : Generals Languages : en Pages : 578
Book Description
Many Great War histories tell the reader what happened on the Western front but few spell out why. In this book, the author looks at the battles through the eyes of the generals who were charged with winning them and examines the accusations that have surrounded them for over 70 years. The tragedy of the death toll on the Western Front gives weight to the argument against them, but what were the near unsurmountable problems that stood between the generals and final victory? How much of what the general public believes about the First World War is really true? This book aims to illuminate the bitter controversy.
Author: Bernd Ulrich Publisher: Grub Street Publishers ISBN: 1844687643 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 193
Book Description
The first English translation of writings that capture the lives and thoughts of German soldiers fighting in the trenches and on the battlefields of WWI. German Soldiers in the Great War is a vivid selection of firsthand accounts and other wartime documents that shed new light on the experiences of German frontline soldiers during the First World War. It reveals in authentic detail the perceptions and emotions of ordinary soldiers that have been covered up by the smokescreen of official military propaganda about “heroism” and “patriotic sacrifice.” In this essential collection of wartime correspondence, editors Benjamin Ziemann and Bernd Ulrich have gathered more than two hundred mostly archival documents, including letters, military dispatches and orders, extracts from diaries, newspaper articles and booklets, medical reports and photographs. This fascinating primary source material provides the first comprehensive insight into the German frontline experiences of the Great War, available in English for the first time in a translation by Christine Brocks.
Author: Mark Adkin Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1526707012 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 1055
Book Description
The definitive guide to the main theater of WWI—“maps of the battles . . . military strategy . . . extraordinary anecdotes . . . it’s a triumph” (Daily Mail). Written by the author of the three previous bestselling Companions on Waterloo, Trafalgar and Gettysburg—now acclaimed as the definitive work of reference on each battle—The Western Front Companion is not a mere chronological account of the fighting. Rather, it is an astonishingly comprehensive and forensic anatomy of how and why the armies fought, of their weapons, equipment and tactics, for over four long and bloody years on a battlefield that stretched from the Belgian coast to the Swiss frontier—a distance of 450 miles. Alongside the British Army, full coverage is given to Britain’s allies—France, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India and the United States—as well as the Germans. The 350,000 words of text range over everything from the railways on the front to the medical corps and the chaplains. Like previous Companions, this book is equally distinguished by its magnificent visual resources—original and intricate maps and diagrams, over 200 resonant and remarkable archive images from the time (many rarely seen), and modern color photographs showing how historic battlefields look nowadays, and paying tribute to the magnificent and poignant cemeteries, monuments and ossuaries that mark the fallen for today’s battlefield visitor. Every reader, no matter how well informed already on the history of World War I, will learn something new from this extraordinary and exhaustive volume. No one interested in the true story and sheer sweep of the Great War on the Western Front can afford to be without it.
Author: Mark Humphries Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press ISBN: 1554587107 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 462
Book Description
This multi-volume series in seven parts is the first English-language translation of Der Weltkrieg, the German official history of the First World War. Originally produced between 1925 and 1944 using classified archival records that were destroyed in the aftermath of the Second World War, Der Weltkrieg is the untold story of Germany’s experience on the Western front, in the words of its official historians, making it vital to the study of the war and official memory in Weimar and Nazi Germany. Although exciting new sources have recently been uncovered in former Soviet archives, this work remains the basis of future scholarship. It is essential reading for any scholar, graduate student, or enthusiast of the Great War. This volume, the first of the series to appear in print, focuses on 1915, the first year of trench warfare. For the first time in the history of warfare, poison gas was used against French and Canadian troops at Ypres. Meanwhile, conflict raged in the German High Command over the political and military direction of the war. The year 1915 also set the stage for the bloodbath at Verdun and sealed the fate of the German Supreme Commander, Erich von Falkenhayn. This is the official version of that story. Foreword by Hew Strachan Co-published with the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies
Author: Roger Chickering
Author: Peter Simkins
Author: Hunt Tooley
Author: Paddy Griffith
Author: Nick Lloyd
Author: Robert Cowley
Author: Robin Neillands
Author: Bernd Ulrich
Author: Mark Adkin
Author: Mark Humphries