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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
World War I has come down to us in indelible images--those of
airplane bombers, bleak-eyed soldiers, stern-faced commanders, and
the ruins of countless villages. But soldiers themselves also took
photographs on the battlefield, and many of their striking images
were transformed into postcards that were sent home to family and
friends or collected as war mementos. "Postcards from the Trenches"
gathers a number of these postcards to create a striking visual
history of World War I.
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. -- .
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.
Indian Army lances in the high passes
Writers at War addresses the most immediate representations of the First World War in the prose of Ford Madox Ford, May Sinclair, Siegfried Sassoon and Mary Borden; it interrogates the various ways in which these writers contended with conveying their war experience from the temporal and spatial proximity of the warzone and investigates the multifarious impact of the war on the (re)development of their aesthetics. It also interrogates to what extent these texts aligned with or challenged existing social, cultural, philosophical and aesthetic norms. While this book is concerned with literary technique, the rich existing scholarship on questions of gender, trauma and cultural studies on World War I literature serves as a foundation. This book does not oppose these perspectives but offers a complementary approach based on close critical reading. The distinctiveness of this study stems from its focus on the question of representation and form and on the specific role of the war in the four authors' literary careers. This is the first scholarly work concerned exclusively with theorising prose written from the immediacy of the war. This book is intended for academics, researchers, PhD candidates, postgraduates and anyone interested in war literature.
The women of the Red Cross at war
Attack
Through a detailed examination of newspaper coverage from 1899-1914, this book seeks to understand the vicarious experience of warfare held by Edwardians at the outset of the First World War. The attitudes towards and perceptions of war held by those who participated in it or encouraged others to do so, are crucial to our understanding of the origins of the First World War. Taking into account media history, cultural studies, and military history, the author argues that the press depicted war as distant and safe; beneficial and desirable and even as some kind of sport or game.
Why did millions of men agree to fight the most horrific war in
history? And go on doing it, in many cases, for years? The question
of consent is one of the many issues of the Great War that still
haunt us today.
""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.
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.
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.
This book is based on original research into intimidation and violence directed at civilians by combatants during the revolutionary period in Ireland, considering this from the perspectives of the British, the Free State and the IRA. The book combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, and focusses on County Kerry, which saw high levels of violence. It demonstrates that violence and intimidation against civilians was more common than clashes between combatants and that the upsurge in violence in 1920 was a result of the deployment of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries, particularly in the autumn and winter of that year. Despite the limited threat posed by the IRA, the British forces engaged in unprecedented and unprovoked violence against civilians. This study stresses the increasing brutality of the subsequent violence by both sides. The book shows how the British had similar methods and views as contemporary counter-revolutionary groups in Europe. IRA violence, however, was, in part, an attempt to impose homogeneity as, beneath the Irish republican narrative of popular approval, there lay a recognition that universal backing was never in fact present. The book is important reading for students and scholars of the Irish revolution, the social history of Ireland and inter-war European violence.
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.
Why, despite the appalling conditions in the trenches of the Western Front, was the British army almost untouched by major mutiny during the First World War? Drawing upon an extensive range of sources, including much previously unpublished archival material, G.D. Sheffield seeks to answer this question by examining a crucial but previously neglected factor in the maintenance of the British army's morale in the First World War: the relationship between the regimental officer and the ordinary soldier.
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. |
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