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Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
In A World At War, 1911-1949, leading and emerging scholars of the
cultural history of the two world wars begin to break down the
traditional barriers between the historiographies of the two
conflicts, identifying commonalities as well as casting new light
on each as part of a broader mission, in honour of Professor John
Horne, to expand the boundaries of academic exploration of warfare
in the 20th century. Utilizing techniques and approaches developed
by cultural historians of the First World War, this volume
showcases and explores four crucial themes relating to the
socio-cultural attributes and representation of war that cut across
both the First and Second World Wars: cultural mobilization, the
nature and depiction of combat, the experience of civilians under
fire, and the different meanings of victory and defeat.
Contributors are: Annette Becker, Robert Dale, Alex Dowdall, Robert
Gerwarth, John Horne, Tomas Irish, Heather Jones, Alan Kramer,
Edward Madigan, Anthony McElligott, Michael S. Neiberg, John Paul
Newman, Catriona Pennell, Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses, Daniel Todman,
and Jay Winter. See inside the book.
This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It
contains classical literature works from over two thousand years.
Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore
shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the
cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical
literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the
mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from
oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of
international literature classics available in printed format again
- worldwide.
Merry Hell is the only complete history of the 25th Canadian
infantry battalion, which was recruited in the autumn and winter of
1914-15 and served overseas from spring 1915 until spring 1919.
Author Robert N Clements, who served in the battalion throughout
that period and rose from private to captain, wrote the story many
years after the war, based on his personal memories and
experiences. As such, his story reflects two unique perspectives on
Canadian military history - the remarkably fresh recollections and
anecdotes of a veteran, and the outlook of a man eager to share
what his generation contributed to the nation's history, character,
and identity.
Professional military historian Brian Douglas Tennyson
buttresses Clements's story with a valuable critical apparatus,
including an analytical introduction that contextualizes the
history and notes that explain unfamiliar points and people. Merry
Hell is a captivating tale for those who enjoy stories of war and
battle, and one that will entertain readers with Clements's richly
colourful anecdotes and witty poems, none of which have been
published before.
In Italy in the Era of the Great War, Vanda Wilcox brings together
nineteen Italian and international scholars to analyse the
political, military, social and cultural history of Italy in the
country's decade of conflict from 1911 to 1922. Starting with the
invasion of Libya in 1911 and concluding with the rise of post-war
social and political unrest, the volume traces domestic and foreign
policy, the economics of the war effort, the history of military
innovation, and social changes including the war's impact on
religion and women, along with major cultural and artistic
developments of the period. Each chapter provides a concise and
effective overview of the field as it currently stands as well as
introducing readers to the latest research. Contributors are Giulia
Albanese, Claudia Baldoli, Allison Scardino Belzer, Francesco
Caccamo, Filippo Cappellano, Selena Daly, Fabio Degli Esposti,
Spencer Di Scala, Douglas J. Forsyth, Irene Guerrini, Oliver Janz,
Irene Lottini, Stefano Marcuzzi, Valerie McGuire, Marco Pluviano,
Paul O'Brien, Carlo Stiaccini, Andrea Ungari, and Bruce Vandervort.
See inside the book.
In central Brussels stands a statue of a young woman. Built in
1923, it is the first monument to a working-class woman in European
history. Her name was Gabrielle Petit. History has forgotten Petit,
an ambitious and patriotic Belgian, executed by firing squad in
1916 for her role as an intelligence agent for the British Army.
After the First World War she was celebrated as an example of stern
endeavour, but a hundred years later her memory has faded. In the
first part of this historical biography Sophie De Schaepdrijver
uses Petit's life to explore gender, class and heroism in the
context of occupied Europe. Petit's experiences reveal the reality
of civilian engagement under military occupation and the emergence
of modern espionage. The second part of the book focuses on the
legacy and cultural memory of Petit and the First World War. By
analysing Petit's representation in ceremony, discourse and popular
culture De Schaepdrijver expands our understanding of remembrance
across the 20th century.
The First World War at sea by Americans who fought in it
It's easy to understand why this book was originally published
under the jingoistic title of 'Over the Seas for Uncle Sam'-perhaps
edited by rather than 'written' by Elaine Sterne-for when it was
written the subject was nothing less than reportage. The passage of
time provides new perspectives on works such as this, and for that
reason we have changed the title to alert readers to the unique
nature of the content. Sterne's book contains fifteen first hand
accounts by those serving in the United States Navy in the first
American conflict of the modern age on a global stage. The United
States entry into the First World War in April, 1917, (particularly
in terms of it's immediately engaged naval contribution) was
pivotal, if not essential. The Allied war effort was being
strangled for want of materials as a result of the German U-Boat
successes against merchant shipping, especially in the Atlantic
Ocean. These accounts by serving men and women in the U. S
Navy-including contributions by marines-are mainly from the
enlisted ranks, with a few from officers. They are told in 'their
own words, ' and enable the modern student of the period to read of
the experiences of those service men and women whose voices-in the
absence of a work such as this-would have been forever lost to
posterity.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each
title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our
hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their
spines and fabric head and tail bands.
What did war look like in the cultural imagination of 1914? Why did
men in Scotland sign up to fight in unprecedented numbers? What
were the martial myths shaping Scottish identity from the aftermath
of Bannockburn to the close of the nineteenth century, and what did
the Scottish soldiers of the First World War think they were
fighting for? Scotland and the First World War: Myth, Memory and
the Legacy of Bannockburn is a collection of new interdisciplinary
essays interrogating the trans-historical myths of nation,
belonging and martial identity that shaped Scotland's encounter
with the First World War. In a series of thematically linked
essays, experts from the fields of literature, history and cultural
studies examine how Scotland remembers war, and how remembering war
has shaped Scotland.
November 1917. The American troops were poorly trained, deficient
in military equipment and doctrine, not remotely ready for armed
conflict on a large scale-and they'd arrived on the Western front
to help the French push back the Germans. The story of what
happened next-the American Expeditionary Force's trial by fire on
the brutal battlefields of France-is told in full for the first
time in Thunder and Flames. Where history has given us some
perspective on the individual battles of the period-at Cantigny,
Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, the Marne River, Soissons, and
little-known Fismette-they appear here as part of a larger series
of interconnected operations, all conducted by Americans new to the
lethal killing fields of World War I and guided by the
battle-tested French. Following the AEF from their initial landing
to their emergence as an independent army in late September 1918,
this book presents a complex picture of how, learning warfare on
the fly, sometimes with devastating consequences, the American
force played a critical role in blunting and then rolling back the
German army's drive toward Paris. The picture that emerges is at
once sweeping in scope and rich in detail, with firsthand testimony
conjuring the real mud and blood of the combat that Edward Lengel
so vividly describes. Official reports and documents provide the
strategic and historical context for these ground-level accounts,
from the perspective of the Germans as well as the Americans and
French. Battle by battle, Thunder and Flames reveals the cost of
the inadequacies in U.S. training, equipment, logistics,
intelligence, and command, along with the rifts in the
Franco-American military marriage. But it also shows how, by trial
and error, through luck and ingenuity, the AEF swiftly became the
independent fighting force of General John "Blackjack" Pershing's
long-held dream-its divisions ultimately among the most
combat-effective military forces to see the war through.
From the late imperial period until 1922, the British and French
made private and government loans to Russia, making it the foremost
international debtor country in pre-World War I Europe. To finance
the modernization of industry, the construction of public works
projects, railroad construction, and the development and adventures
of the military-industrial complex, Russia's ministers of finance,
municipal leaders, and nascent manufacturing class turned, time and
time again, to foreign capital. From the forging of the
Franco-Russian alliance onwards, Russia's needs were met, first and
foremost, its allies and diplomatic partners in the developing
Triple Entente. In the case of Russia's relationships with both
France and Great Britain, an open pocketbook primed the pump,
facilitating the good spirits that fostered agreement. Russia's
continued access to those ready lenders ensured that the empire of
the Tsars would not be tempted away from its alliance and entente
partners. This web of financial and political interdependence
affected both foreign policy and domestic society in all three
countries. The Russian state was so heavily indebted to its western
creditors, rendering those western economies almost prisoners to
this debt, that the debtor nation in many ways had the upper hand;
the Russian government at times was actually able to dictate policy
to its French and British counterparts. Those nations' investing
classes-which, in France in particular, spanned not only the upper
classes but the middle, rentier class, as well-had such a vast
proportion of their savings wrapped up in Russian bonds that any
default would have been catastrophic for their own economies. That
default came not long after the Bolshevik Revolution brought to
power a government who felt no responsibility whatsoever for the
debts accrued by the tsars for the purpose of oppressing Russia's
workers and peasants. The ensuing effect on allied morale, the
French and British economies and, ultimately, on the Anglo-French
relationship, was grim and far-reaching. This book will contribute
to understandings of the ways that non-governmental and sometimes
transnational actors were able to influence both British and French
foreign policy and Russian foreign and domestic policy. It will
address the role of individual financiers and policy makers-men
like Lord Revelstoke, chairman of Baring Brothers, the British and
French Rothschild cousins, Edouard Noetzlin of the Banque de Paris
et de Pays Bas, and Sergei Witte, Russia's authoritative finance
minister during much of this age of expansion; the importance of
foreign capital in late imperial Russian policy; and the particular
role of British capital and financial investment in the
construction and strengthening of the Anglo-Russo-French entente.
It will illustrate the interrelationship of political and economic
decision-making with the ideas and beliefs that inform security
policy. Drawing upon both the traditional archival sources for
diplomatic history-the government holdings of Great Britain,
France, and Russia-and the non-governmental archival holdings of
international finance-this project looks beyond the realm of high
politics and state-centered decision making in the formation of
foreign policy, offering insights into the forms and functions of
diplomatic alliances while elucidating the connections between
finance and foreign policy. It is a classic tale of money and power
in the modern era-an age of economic interconnectivity and great
power interdependency.
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