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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
Previously published as Peacemakers Between January and July 1919, after the war to end all wars, men and women from all over the world converged on Paris for the Peace Conference. At its heart were the leaders of the three great powers - Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau. Kings, prime ministers and foreign ministers with their crowds of advisers rubbed shoulders with journalists and lobbyists for a hundred causes - from Armenian independence to women's rights. Everyone had business in Paris that year - T.E. Lawrence, Queen Marie of Romania, Maynard Keynes, Ho Chi Minh. There had never been anything like it before, and there never has been since. For six extraordinary months the city was effectively the centre of world government as the peacemakers wound up bankrupt empires and created new countries. They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China and dismissed the Arabs, struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews. The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally; failed above all to prevent another war. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. They tried to be evenhanded, but their goals - to make defeated countries pay without destroying them, to satisfy impossible nationalist dreams, to prevent the spread of Bolshevism and to establish a world order based on democracy and reason - could not be achieved by diplomacy. Paris 1919 (originally published as Peacemakers) offers a prismatic view of the moment when much of the modern world was first sketched out.
The British cultural history of the Gallipoli campaign has been overlooked until now - this is a significant book as it offers the first real opportunity for this important campaign to be included in undergraduate courses on WWI. The commemoration of war is a particularly vibrant area of study - Anzac Day, commemorating the landings that began the Gallipoli campaign, is central to Australian national consciousness and this book examines why. A crucial argument in the cultural history of the First World War was sparked by Paul Fussell's contention that the war signified a profound cultural rupture; in widening the debate from the Western Front, this book supports the counter argument that romantic modes of expression retained resonance and utility. In Australia, the renewal of the story of Gallipoli by historians and film-makers (notably Peter Weir's 1981 film starring Mel Gibson) has profoundly altered the national sense of identity and society's perceptions of the armed forces; the authors explains how the writing of this particular event has developed and achieved this central position. An essential volume for those interested in British military and Australian history, postcolonialism and nation building, from academics and students through to the general reader. -- .
Indian Army lances in the high passes
The women of the Red Cross at war
Many World War II exploits took place away from the spotlight. Raymond Miller brings his gift to the story of Service and Duty. How he chose to leave Purdue University, ROTC, a basketball team and parents behind to help bring a dictator to heel as co-pilot of a B-17G Flying Fortress Bomber. On Raymond's second combat mission he nearly lost his life from a piece of shrapnel to the throat and shattered breast bone. After surgery and rehab he resumed to co-pilot twenty more combat missions encountering the best the Germans could throw against them. They'd leave out to fly a mission over hostile territory not knowing when they might be hit or knowing if they would return. There were flights where the crews gulp to alleviate fear, for they felt there were no havens of security in an Allied victory that at times seemed importable. Raymond Miller feels honored to have been able to serve his country. Raymond's story gives a compelling glimpse of three brothers' value that characterized their early years and their United States Army Air Corps years of dedication. Raymond says, "I feel blessed for God has been good to me.
Attack
With an Introduction by Angus Calder. As Angus Calder states in his introduction to this edition, 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom is one of the major statements about the fighting experience of the First World War'. Lawrence's younger brothers, Frank and Will, had been killed on the Western Front in 1915. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, written between 1919 and 1926, tells of the vastly different campaign against the Turks in the Middle East - one which encompasses gross acts of cruelty and revenge and ends in a welter of stink and corpses in the disgusting 'hospital' in Damascus. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is no Boys Own Paper tale of Imperial triumph, but a complex work of high literary aspiration which stands in the tradition of Melville and Dostoevsky, and alongside the writings of Yeats, Eliot and Joyce.
""Fever of War" adds an important dimension to knowled of the
influenza pandemic of 1918-1919." aIt is a must read for anyone interested in military or health care history.a--"Nursing History Review" Fever of War is well written, meticulously researched, and poses
much food for thought.a "Prof. Byerly's superb research and writing bring to life an
event that held the world in its terrible grasp for more than a
year. Compelling and enlightening, "Fever of War" is well worth the
reading." "This is a well-written, well-researched book that generally
statys tightly on topic"--H-War "Byerly's book provides a wealth of fascinating detail. Everyone
with an interest in the 1918-19 pandemic will profit from reading
it"--Journal of the History of Medicine "A significant contribution to both military, social, and
medical history. . . . Fills a void and provides a valuable
corrective to a literature that ignored the role of the army in
creating conditions that maximized mortality, glorified the role of
the military, and provided explanations that shifted responsibility
to individual and racial susceptibilities." "In this lucid, well-focused book, Byerly (Univ. of Colorado)
examines the 1918 influenza pandemic as experienced by the American
Expeditionary Force. In writing this important analysis, Byerly
joins scholars such as Alfred Crosby, whose classic study America's
Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 remains the benchmark,
and John Barry, whose The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the
Deadliest Plague inHistory focuses on the role of public health.
Byerly's prose is exceptionally clear and elegant. Highly
recommended." a" Fever of War" is handsome, readable, and extensively
researched.a "In this era of threats of anthrax, smallpox, SARS, and bird
flue, are we any less assured of our ability to conquer disease
than the generation of 1918? Perhaps Byerly's account of the great
influenza epidemic is a clarion call to wake us from our own
hubris." aByerlyas book provides a wealth of fascinating detail. Everyone
with an interest in the 1918a19 pandemic will profit from reading
it.a aa]a significant contribution to both military, social, and medical historya].fills a void and provides a valuable corrective to a literature that ignored the role of the army in creating conditions that maximized mortality, glorified the role of the military, and provided explanations that shifted responsibility to individual and racial susceptibilities.a--"American Historical Review" ""Fever of War" is an outstanding addition to the literature on
U.S. participation in World War I . . . based on exhaustive
research and thorough engagement with the published scholarship in
medical, military, and social history. An important book whose
fluently written exposition is well balanced between rigorous
analysis and sensitive attention to the human beings--doctors and
victims alike--who worked and suffered through the pandemic." ""Fever of War" is handsome, readable, and extensively
researched...It is awell-priced and wonderful addition to the
historical literature and highly recommended to anyone with an
interest in the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919." ""Fever of War" makes a powerful argument. One cannot walk away from the book without grasping the significant, tragic impact of influenza on U.S. troops in WWI, and how difficult that impact was for the nation's citizens to bear." --"Boulder Daily Camera" The influenza epidemic of 1918 killed more people in one year than the Great War killed in four, sickening at least one quarter of the world's population. In "Fever of War," Carol R. Byerly uncovers the startling impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic on the American army, its medical officers, and their profession, a story which has long been silenced. Through medical officers' memoirs and diaries, official reports, scientific articles, and other original sources, Byerly tells a grave tale about the limits of modern medicine and warfare. The tragedy begins with overly confident medical officers who, armed with new knowledge and technologies of modern medicine, had an inflated sense of their ability to control disease. The conditions of trench warfare on the Western Front soon outflanked medical knowledge by creating an environment where the influenza virus could mutate to a lethal strain. This new flu virus soon left medical officers' confidence in tatters as thousands of soldiers and trainees died under their care. They also were unable to convince the War Department to reduce the crowding of troops aboard ships and in barracks which were providing ideal environments for the epidemic to thrive.After the war, and given their helplessness to control influenza, many medical officers and military leaders began to downplay the epidemic as a significant event for the U. S. army, in effect erasing this dramatic story from the American historical memory.
The Gambardier: the Experiences of a Battery of Heavy Artillery on the Western Front During the First World War The First World War with the big guns Gambardier is a title-not completely complimentary-for a heavy or siege artilleryman. It was bestowed most usually by his comrade (but rival) of the field artillery. This is the story of a young officer-a Gambardier-from the outbreak of the Great War to its end on the Western Front. In this compelling and unusual book, we experience life on campaign, the tension and danger of Observation Posts (O. Ps), the brutality of counter barrages from the enemy-the German artillery, and the humour and incident of life amongst a small group of men thrown together in adversity. The big guns themselves are the real characters of this book, and the author provides a fascinating and compelling detail about their various types, their rate of fire, their ammunition, transportation and maintenance.
The Great War of 1914-1918 was fought on the battlefield, on the sea and in the air, and in the heart. Museums Victoria's exhibition World War I: Love and Sorrow exposed not just the nature of that war, but its depth and duration in personal and familial lives. Hailed by eminent scholar Jay Winter as "one of the best which the centenary of the Great War has occasioned", the exhibition delved into the war's continuing emotional claims on descendants and on those who encounter the war through museums today. Contributors to this volume, drawn largely from the exhibition's curators and advisory panel, grapple with the complexities of recovering and presenting difficult histories of the war. In eleven essays the book presents a new, more sensitive and nuanced narrative of the Great War, in which families and individuals take centre stage. Together they uncover private reckonings with the costs of that experience, not only in the years immediately after the war, but in the century since.
In August of 1945, some 200,000 people died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki from two nuclear weapon explosions during Nuclear War I. This book details the following historical events that led to Nuclear War I: Fermi and Szilard worked on nuclear fission at Columbia University in 1939. Plutonium-239 was discovered in 1940. Einstein informed President Roosevelt of possible German uranium bombs. Fermi built the world's first nuclear reactor in 1942, to manufacture plutonium. General Groves and Oppenheimer led the U.S. effort to build atomic bombs as part of the Manhattan Project. Soviet spies infiltrated the Manhattan Project. The Trinity Test on July 16, 1945, was the world's first nuclear explosion. The Pope (1943) and many scientists spoke against the use of nuclear weapons. Truman became President on April 12, 1945 and first learned of the Manhattan Project. The B-29 bomber was selected to deliver atomic bombs to Japan. On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb (uranium) was exploded over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. For three days (August 6th to the 9th) hope abounded that Japan would surrender but preparations for more nuclear war continued. On August 9, 1945, an atomic bomb (plutonium) was exploded over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito survived a coup by angry military officers and Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945.
This is a comprehensive new operational military history of the Ottoman army during the First World War. Drawing from archives, official military histories, personal war narratives and sizable Turkish secondary literature, it tells the incredible story of the Ottoman army's struggle from the mountains of the Caucasus to the deserts of Arabia and the bloody shores of Gallipoli. The Ottoman army, by opening new fronts, diverted and kept sizeable units of British, Russian and French forces away from the main theatres and even sent reinforcements to Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria. Against all odds the Ottoman army ultimately achieved some striking successes, not only on the battlefield, but in their total mobilization of the empire's meagre human and economic resources. However, even by the terrible standards of the First World War, these achievements came at a terrible price in casualties and, ultimately, loss of territory. Thus, instead of improving the integrity and security of the empire, the war effectively dismantled it and created situations and problems hitherto undreamed of by a besieged Ottoman leadership. In a unique account, Uyar revises our understanding of the war in the Middle East.
From Africa to Flanders mud with the Mancunians
From its origins to its terrible legacy, the tortuous course of the Great War is vividly set out in a series of 174 fascinating maps. Together the maps form a comprehensive and compelling picture of the war that shattered Europe, and illustrate its military, social, political and economic aspects. Beginning with the tensions that already existed, the atlas covers:
This third edition contains an entirely new section depicting the visual remembrance of the war; a fascinating visitors' guide to the memorials that commemorate the tragedy of the Somme.
In the First World War, civilian life played a fundamental part in the war effort; and music was no exception. Performing Propaganda looks at musical life in Paris during the First World War. This conflict was one in which civilian life played a fundamental part in the war effort; and music was no exception. The book examines how Western art music became a central part of the home-front war effort, employed by both musicians and government as a powerful tool of propaganda. It situates French art music of the First World War within its social, cultural and political context, and within the wider temporal framework of the Franco-Prussian and Second World Wars. Drawing on a diverse range of archival material, including concert and operatic programmes, the musical and daily press, documents detailing government involvement in musical activity, and police records, it explores how various facets of French musical life served, in very different ways, as propaganda. In short, it explores why music mattered during a period of prolonged conflict, whether as emotional catalyst, weapon, or tool. This book will be of interest to musicologists, to cultural historians working on early twentieth-century France, and to scholars of the First World War,as well as to a more general readership with an interest in music during times of adversity. RACHEL MOORE is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Music, University of Oxford.
A collection of Rudyard Kipling's articles describing the French Frontline during the First World War. Published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Rudyard Kipling's birth.
Tigers on the Western Front
When HMS Laurentic sank in 1917, few knew what cargo she was carrying, and the Admiralty wanted to keep it that way. After all, broadcasting that there were 44 tons of gold off the coast of Ireland in the middle of a vicious and bloody war was not the best strategic move. But Britain desperately needed that gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant was an expert diver and helped discover how to prevent decompression sickness ('the bends'). With a then world record dive of 210ft under his belt and a proven history of military determination, Damant was the perfect man for a job that required the utmost secrecy and skill. What followed next was a tale of incredible feats, set against a backdrop of war and treacherous storms. Based on thousands of Admiralty pages, interviews with Damant's family and the unpublished memoirs of the man himself, The Sunken Gold is a story of war, treasure - and one man's obsession to find it. |
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