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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
Virginia played an important role during World War I, supplying the
Allied forces with food, horses and steel in 1915 and 1916. After
America entered the war in 1917, Virginians served in numerous
military and civilian roles-Red Cross nurses, sailors,
shipbuilders, pilots, stenographers and domestic gardeners. More
than 100,000 were drafted-more than 3600 lost their lives. Almost
every city and county lost men and women to the war. The author
details the state's manifold contributions to the war effort and
presents a study of monuments erected after the war.
Historical research into the Armenian Genocide has grown
tremendously in recent years, but much of it has focused on
large-scale questions related to Ottoman policy or the scope of the
killing. Consequently, surprisingly little is known about the
actual experiences of the genocide's victims. Daily Life in the
Abyss illuminates this aspect through the intertwined stories of
two Armenian families who endured forced relocation and deprivation
in and around modern-day Syria. Through analysis of diaries and
other source material, it reconstructs the rhythms of daily life
within an often bleak and hostile environment, in the face of a
gradually disintegrating social fabric.
This book examines the history of Herbert Hoover's Commission for
Relief in Belgium, which supplied humanitarian aid to the millions
of civilians trapped behind German lines in Belgium and Northern
France during World War I. Here, Clotilde Druelle focuses on the
little-known work of the CRB in Northern France, crossing
continents and excavating neglected archives to tell the story of
daily life under Allied blockade in the region. She shows how the
survival of 2.3 million French civilians came to depend upon the
transnational mobilization of a new sort of diplomatic actor-the
non-governmental organization. Lacking formal authority, the
leaders of the CRB claimed moral authority, introducing the
concepts of a "humanitarian food emergency" and "humanitarian
corridors" and ushering in a new age of international relations and
American hegemony.
America's Arab Nationalists focuses in on the relationship between
Arab nationalists and Americans in the struggle for independence in
an era when idealistic Americans could see the Arab nationalist
struggle as an expression of their own values. In the first three
decades of the twentieth century (from the 1908 Ottoman revolution
to the rise of Hitler), important and influential Americans,
including members of the small Arab-American community,
intellectually, politically and financially participated in the
construction of Arab nationalism. This book tells the story of a
diverse group of people whose contributions are largely unknown to
the American public. The role Americans played in the development
of Arab nationalism has been largely unexplored by historians,
making this an important and original contribution to scholarship.
This volume is of great interest to students and academics in the
field, though the narrative style is accessible to anoyone
interested in Arab nationalism, the conflict between Zionists and
Palestinians, and the United States' relationship with the Arab
world.
The literary canon of World War I - celebrated for realizing the
experience of an entire generation - ignores writing by women. The
war brought home to women the sorrow of the loss of husbands,
lovers and relatives as well as more revolutionary knowledge gained
through the experience of working in munitions factories and as
ambulance drivers, police, nurses and spies. During all this time
women wrote - letters, poetry, novels, short stories and memoirs.
This volume of mutually reflective essays brings writing from
Britain, America, France, Germany, Australia and Russia into
literary focus.
World War I was a global cataclysm that toppled centuries-old
dynasties and launched ""the American century."" Yet at the outset
few Americans saw any reason to get involved in yet another
conflict among the crowned heads of Europe. Despite its declared
neutrality, the U.S. government gradually became more sympathetic
with the Allies, until President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to
declare war on Germany to ""make the world safe for democracy." Key
to this shift in policy and public opinion was
""Anglo-Saxonism""-the belief that the English-speaking peoples
were inherently superior and fit for world leadership. Just before
the war, British and American elites set aside former disputes and
recognized their potential for dominating the international stage.
By casting Germans as "barbarians" and spreading stories of
atrocities, the Wilson administration persuaded the
public-including millions of German Americans-that siding with the
Allies was a just cause.
Historian Michael Enright provides a close-up account of Australian
servicemen on the Western Front during WWI. Using many previously
unpublished, first-hand materials, the author provides a fresh look
at the Great War through the eyes of ordinary servicemen. The scene
is set with a brief account of events at Gallipoli, the place where
the Australians gained their reputation as fierce fighters, and
then the author discusses the reformation of the ANZAC divisions in
Egypt and their subsequent movement to France. This leads to
previously unpublished personal accounts that give new
interpretations of the key battles on the Western Front at
Fromelles, Somme, Bullecourt, Messines, Passchendaele, and
Villers-Bretonneux, amongst others. Many of these accounts support
the particular bravery of the Australian soldier. This work
provides a reassessment of the ANZAC legend and mythology based on
the personal diaries and memoirs of those who were there.
A war in the skies above the waves
As early as 1908 the Royal Navy understood the potential for the
use of aircraft in naval warfare. By 1914 the Royal Naval Air
Service consisted of 93 aircraft, 6 airships, 2 balloons and 727
personnel. By 1918 when the RNAS was combined with the RAF it had
nearly 3,000 aircraft and more than 55,000 personnel. Aircraft
working in concert with the Royal Navy and against enemy shipping
and coastal installations had come to stay. This interesting book
looks at the RNAS from a much more personal perspective-that of one
young navy pilot, Harold Rosher. The book tells the story of
Rosher's war, based around Dover and engaged in patrolling over and
across the English Channel and attacking enemy held coastal
defences such as Zeebrugge, principally through letters to his
family and provides vital insights into the First World War in the
air as experienced by an early naval pilot. Available in softcover
and hardcover with dust jacket
The first full biography of Warren Lewis, brother and secretary of
C. S. LewisDetailing the life of Warren Hamilton Lewis, author Don
W. King gives us new insights into the life and mind of Warren's
famous brother, C. S. Lewis, and also demonstrates how Warren's
experiences provide an illuminating window into the events,
personalities, and culture of 20th-century England. Inkling,
Historian, Soldier, and Brother will appeal to those interested in
C. S. Lewis and British social and cultural history. As a career
soldier, Warren served in France during the nightmare of World War
I and was later posted to Sierra Leone and Shanghai. On his
retirement from the army, he became an active member of the
household at the Kilns, the residence outside Oxford that he
co-owned with his brother and Mrs. Janie Moore, and he played an
important role in the relationship between his brother and Joy
Davidman, the woman who became C. S. Lewis's wife. A talented
writer and accomplished amateur historian, Warren also researched
and wrote seven books on 17th-century French history. Inkling,
Historian, Soldier, and Brother examines Warren Lewis's role as an
original member of the Oxford Inklings-that now famous group of
novelists, thinkers, clergy, poets, essayists, medical men,
scholars, and friends who met regularly to drink beer; discuss
books, ideas, history, and writers; and share pieces of their own
writing for feedback from the group. Drawing from Warren Lewis's
unpublished diaries, his letters, the memoir he wrote about his
family, and other primary materials, this biography is an engaging
story of a fascinating life, period of history, and of the warm and
loving relationship between Warren and his brother, which lasted
throughout their lives.
"A rich study of the role of personal psychology in the shaping of
the new global order after World War I. So long as so much
political power is concentrated in one human mind, we are all at
the mercy of the next madman in the White House." -Gary J. Bass,
author of The Blood Telegram The notorious psychobiography of
Woodrow Wilson, rediscovered nearly a century after it was written
by Sigmund Freud and US diplomat William C. Bullitt, sheds new
light on how the mental health of a controversial American
president shaped world events. When the fate of millions rests on
the decisions of a mentally compromised leader, what can one person
do? Disillusioned by President Woodrow Wilson's destructive and
irrational handling of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, a US diplomat
named William C. Bullitt asked this very question. With the help of
his friend Sigmund Freud, Bullitt set out to write a psychological
analysis of the president. He gathered material from personal
archives and interviewed members of Wilson's inner circle. In The
Madman in the White House, Patrick Weil resurrects this forgotten
portrait of a troubled president. After two years of collaboration,
Bullitt and Freud signed off on a manuscript in April 1932. But the
book was not published until 1966, nearly thirty years after
Freud's death and only months before Bullitt's. The published
edition was heavily redacted, and by the time it was released, the
mystique of psychoanalysis had waned in popular culture and
Wilson's legacy was unassailable. The psychological study was
panned by critics, and Freud's descendants denied his involvement
in the project. For nearly a century, the mysterious, original
Bullitt and Freud manuscript remained hidden from the public. Then
in 2014, while browsing the archives of Yale University, Weil
happened upon the text. Based on his reading of the 1932
manuscript, Weil examines the significance of Bullitt and Freud's
findings and offers a major reassessment of the notorious
psychobiography. The result is a powerful warning about the
influence a single unbalanced personality can have on the course of
history.
The acclaimed British historian offers a majestic, single-volume
work incorporating all major fronts-domestic, diplomatic,
military-for "a stunning achievement of research and storytelling"
("Publishers Weekly")
It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the
morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire called Sarajevo. It would end officially almost five years
later. Unofficially, it has never ended: the horrors we live with
today were born in the First World War.
It left millions-civilians and soldiers-maimed or dead. And it left
us with new technologies of death: tanks, planes, and submarines;
reliable rapid-fire machine guns and field artillery; poison gas
and chemical warfare. It introduced us to U-boat packs and
strategic bombing, to unrestricted war on civilians and
mistreatment of prisoners. Most of all, it changed our world. In
its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, whole populations lost
their national identities as political systems, and geographic
boundaries were realigned. Instabilities were institutionalized,
enmities enshrined. And the social order shifted seismically.
Manners, mores, codes of behavior; literature and the arts;
education and class distinctions-all underwent a vast sea change.
And in all these ways, the twentieth century can be said to have
been born on the morning of June 28, 1914.
"One of the first books that anyone should read in beginning to
try to understand this war and this century."
-"The New York Times Book Review" (cover)
Invented during World War I to break the grim deadlock of the
Western Front trenches, tanks went on to revolutionize warfare.
From the lightning Blitzkrieg assaults of World War II, to the
great battles in the Middle Eastern desert, tanks have become one
of the key components of the 'combined arms' philosophy of the
modern battlefield. This pocket guide makes accessible to
'rivetheads' everywhere essential information to identify 40 of
history's most fearsome tanks, including Germany's Tiger, Russia's
T-34, America's Sherman and Panther, and France's FT-17. Each tank
is presented with a detailed drawing to aid recognition.
This is the first study of the Ludendorff Offensives of 1918 based
extensively on key German records presumed to be lost forever after
Potsdam was bombed in 1944. In 1997, David T. Zabecki discovered
translated copies of these files in a collection of old
instructional material at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff
College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He presents his findings here
for the first time, with a thorough review of the surviving
original operational plans and orders, to offer a wealth of fresh
insights to the German Offensives of 1918. David T. Zabecki clearly
demonstrates how the German failure to exploit the vulnerabilities
in the BEF's rail system led to the failure of the first two
offensives, and how inadequacies in the German rail system
determined the outcome of the last three offensives. This is a
window into the mind of the German General Staff of World War I,
with thorough analysis of the German planning and decision making
processes during the execution of battles. This is also the first
study in English or in German to analyze the specifics of the
aborted Operation HAGEN plan. This is also the first study of the
1918 Offensives to focus on the 'operational level of war' and on
the body of military activity known as 'the operational art',
rather than on the conventional tactical or strategic levels. This
book will be of great interest to all students of World War I, the
German Army and of strategic studies and military theory in
general.
Nearly 100 years ago, on October 4, 1918, on a muddy, poison
gas-soaked hillside in France, the U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment
jumped-off amidst a hail of shell fire and machine-gun fire to
begin the final push to end World War I. For the next 39 days, with
little respite, the regiment fought desperately against a
determined, well-armed foe. This is the story of a single regiment
in a successful, highly acclaimed "Regular Army" division, during
the greatest American battle to date. This is not a dry recitation
of facts, but an in-depth examination of a single regiment that
allows the reader to appreciate the intricacies of small-unit
action and the problems associated with leading platoons,
companies, and battalions in battle during the Great War, while at
the same time depicting the human drama associated with the
terrible carnage
A classic text that has been updated across the chapters, giving
students a broad perspective on all the work done since the text
was originally written, as well as the original perspective. A new
introduction examines the topics and arguments that historians have
raised since the original text was written, explaining what is new
about them and their impact on the original text, giving students
the tools to anaylse the context of the new material. Includes a
new timeline, and fully updated further reading, providing extended
context for students reading the text.
International contributors from the fields of political science,
cultural studies, history, and literature grapple with both the
local and global impact of World War I on marginal communities in
China, Syria, Europe, Russia, and the Caribbean. Readers can
uncover the neglected stories of this World War I as contributors
draw particular attention to features of the war that are
underrepresented such as Chinese contingent labor, East Prussian
deportees, remittances from Syrian immigrants in the New World to
struggling relatives in the Ottoman Empire, the war effort from
Serbia to Martinique, and other war experiences. By redirecting
focus away from the traditional areas of historical examination,
such as battles on the Western Front and military strategy, this
collection of chapters, international and interdisciplinary in
nature, illustrates the war's omnipresence throughout the world, in
particular its effect on less studied peoples and regions. The
primary objective of this volume is to examine World War I through
the lens of its forgotten participants, neglected stories, and
underrepresented peoples.
Museums, Modernity and Conflict examines the history of the
relationship between museums, collections and war, revealing how
museums have responded to and been shaped by war and conflicts of
various sorts. Written by a mixture of museum professionals and
academics and ranging across Europe, North America and the Middle
East, this book examines the many ways in which museums were
affected by major conflicts such as the World Wars, considers how
and why they attempted to contribute to the war effort, analyses
how wartime collecting shaped the nature of the objects held by a
variety of museums, and demonstrates how museums of war and of the
military came into existence during this period. Closely focused
around conflicts which had the most wide-ranging impact on museums,
this collection includes reflections on museums such as the Louvre,
the Stedelijk in the Netherlands, the Canadian War Museum and the
State Art Collections Dresden. Museums, Modernity and Conflict will
be of interest to academics and students worldwide, particularly
those engaged in the study of museums, war and history. Showing how
the past continues to shape contemporary museum work in a variety
of different and sometimes unexpected ways, the book will also be
of interest to museum practitioners.
The First World War's centenary generated a mass of commemorative
activity worldwide. Officially and unofficially; individually,
collectively and commercially; locally, nationally and
internationally, efforts were made to respond to the legacies of
this vast conflict. This book explores some of these responses from
areas previously tied to the British Empire, including Australia,
Britain, Canada, India and New Zealand. Showcasing insights from
historians of commemoration and heritage professionals it provides
revealing insider and outsider perspectives of the centenary. How
far did commemoration become celebration, and how merited were such
responses? To what extent did the centenary serve wider social and
political functions? Was it a time for new knowledge and
understanding of the events of a century ago, for recovery of lost
or marginalised voices, or for confirming existing cliches? And
what can be learned from the experience of this centenary that
might inform the approach to future commemorative activities? The
contributors to this book grapple with these questions, coming to
different answers and demonstrating the connections and
disconnections between those involved in building public knowledge
of the 'war to end all wars'.
Tens of thousands of Jewish children were orphaned during World War
I and in the subsequent years of conflict. In response, Jewish
leaders in Poland established CENTOS, the Central Union of
Associations for Jewish Orphan Care. Through CENTOS, social workers
and other professionals cooperated to offer Jewish children the
preparation necessary to survive during a turbulent period. They
established new organizations that functioned beyond the authority
of the recognized Jewish community and with the support of Polish
officials. The work of CENTOS exemplifies the community's goal to
build a Jewish future. Translations of sources from CENTOS
publications in Yiddish and Polish describe the lives of the
orphaned Jewish children and the tireless efforts of adults to
better the children's circumstances.
Many believe that World War I was only fought "over there," as the
popular 1917 song goes, in the trenches and muddy battlefields of
Northern France and Belgium - they are wrong. There was a secret
war fought in America; on remote railway bridges and waterways
linking the United States and Canada, aboard burning and exploding
ships in the Atlantic Ocean, in the smoldering ruins of America's
bombed and burned-out factories, munitions plants and railway
centers and waged in carefully disguised clandestine workshops
where improvised explosive devices and deadly toxins were designed
and manufactured. It was irregular warfare on a scale that caught
the United States woefully unprepared. This is the true story of
German secret agents engaged in a campaign of subversion and terror
on the American homeland before and during World War I.
The Impact of the First World War on U.S. Policymakers: American
Strategic and Foreign Policy Formulation, 1938-1942 is designed to
recount the formulation of foreign and defense policies through an
examination of the background of the policymakers, with specific
emphasis on the World War I experience. The introduction provides
an analysis of the literature of the history of this American World
War II policy formulation. The events and factors that led to the
reorientation of priorities in 1938-1939 are examined. From that
base, Michael Carew reviews the unfolding events of the European
and Japanese degeneration into war through the spring of 1940, and
their perception for the American policy-makers. He also recounts
the tectonic shifts of the subsequent eighteen months and the
scramble for an American response. The immediate consequences of
Pearl Harbor brought the policymaking to a crisis, and the
Casablanca conference of January 1943 signified the completion of
the formulation of American foreign policy and naval-military
strategy. Carew emphasizes the leadership of President Roosevelt
and his cadre of planners in the policy formulation realm, the
assertion of leadership of the alliance, and Roosevelt's specific
tasks in managing the American war effort. These presidential tasks
included the industrial mobilization of the American economy, the
domestic political leadership of the war, the persuasion of the
alliance to the propriety of American policy, and the defeat of the
Axis.
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