First World War Books

Book SynopsisIn this insightful and revealing study, Justin Fantauzzo uses a wide range of documentary and visual sources to explore the experience and memory of British and Dominion soldiers who fought in the Middle East and Macedonia during the First World War. He shows that not only was the experience of these campaigns markedly different to their counter-parts on the Western Front, but so too were the memories and portrayals of these campaigns in the inter-war period. Fantauzzo''s analysis highlights the disparities and contradictions that exist in the experience and memory of war and helps us to rethink what the war meant to the soldiers who fought in this region, how soldiers understood the war itself and how it was remembered.Trade Review'This book will be useful for scholars and public alike who wish to know more about what it was like to serve in theatres 'away from the Western Front'.' John Siblon, Journal of British Studies'Drawing on a sizable amount of bibliographical sources (pp. 226–243), the author ensures the great scientific value of his approach, and by reconstructing interesting life stories and the universe of the combatants in a way that is easy and pleasant to read and understand, he invites the reader to a useful and enriching lecture about a topic that is still debated today.' Iuliu-Marius Morariu, Transylvanian ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Experience: 1. Soldiering; 2. Touring; 3. Meaning; 4. Forgotten; Part II. Memory: 5. Public memory; 6. Private memory; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisComparatively little is known about the musical cultures of the British armed forces during the Great War. This groundbreaking study is the first to examine music''s vital presence in a range of military contexts including military camps, ships, aerodromes and battlefields, canteen huts, hospitals and PoW camps. Emma Hanna argues that music was omnipresent in servicemen''s wartime existence and was a vital element for the maintenance of morale. She shows how music was utilised to stimulate recruitment and fundraising, for diplomatic and propaganda purposes, and for religious, educational and therapeutic reasons. Music was not in any way ephemeral, it was unmatched in its power to cajole, console, cheer and inspire during the conflict and its aftermath. This study is a major contribution to our understanding of the wartime realities of the British armed forces during the Great War.Trade Review'This triumphant blend of cultural and military history hits all the right notes. Emma Hanna provides a highly original exploration of an often neglected but hugely important aspect of the Great War experience: music. A brilliant book which makes a highly distinctive contribution to scholarship on the First World War. Brava!' Jonathan Boff, author of Haig's Enemy: Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany's War on the Western Front'This wonderful and enriching book restores music to its rightful place as an essential part of how we understand the British experience of the First World War. It reveals the many different ways in which music was part of the everyday life of service personnel, as well as its wider implications, such as military welfare, wartime voluntarism and contemporary debates about the meanings of the conflict.' Daniel Todman, author of Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937–1941'… this [book] remains an important and informative text which offers a comprehensive overview of the many ways in which music was deployed in this conflict. As such, it is likely also to be a useful introduction to the roles of music in military life more generally, including for advanced students with some prior, basic knowledge of the War from the British perspective.' Morag Josephine Grant, H-Soz-Kult'Hanna effectively weaves together cultural and military history to provide a refreshing look at the First World War. The breadth of her study allows her to effectively show the significance of music during the … [this] study is a valuable read not only for those who study the First World War but also for those interested in the diverse ways that music can shape the experience of war.' Theodore Racicot, H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews OnlineTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Music in Britain, 1914; 2. Recruitment and fundraising; 3. Instruments of war; 4. Songs, identity and morale; 5. Captivity; 6. Religion and pastoral Care; 7. Medicine and therapy; 8. The gramophone; 9. Civilian concert parties; 10. Servicemen's concert parties; 11. After the Armistice; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisFor the first time, Richard S. Grayson tells the story of the Dubliners who served in the British military and in republican forces during the First World War and the Irish Revolution as a series of interconnected ''Great Wars''. He charts the full scope of Dubliners'' military service, far beyond the well-known Dublin ''Pals'', with as many as 35,000 serving and over 6,500 dead, from the Irish Sea to the Middle East and beyond. Linking two conflicts usually narrated as separate stories, he shows how Irish nationalist support for Britain going to war in 1914 can only be understood in the context of the political fight for Home Rule and why so many Dubliners were hostile to the Easter Rising. He examines Dublin loyalism and how the War of Independence and the Civil War would be shaped by the militarisation of Irish society and the earlier experiences of veterans of the British army.Trade Review'Dublin's Great Wars exploits a wealth of sources to reconstruct the street-level impact of a decade of war and revolution which ultimately culminated in Irish independence. Ranging from Gallipoli to the General Post Office, Grayson skilfully illuminates the diversity of experiences and loyalties that characterised revolutionary Dublin's entangled military histories.' Fearghal McGarry, author of The Rising. Ireland: Easter 1916'Richard S. Grayson's masterly study shows that Dubliners' opposition to rule by the British ran deep – but so did support for the Crown. This is a penetrating and ambitious book that successfully reconnects the Irish Revolution with the First World War.' Gary Sheffield, author of A Short History of the First World War'This lively and detailed account of the military history of Dublin men and their families from 1912 to 1923 presents a convincing case for viewing the Great War and the military episodes in the Irish struggle for independence as a series of inter-connected 'Great Wars'.' Mary E. Daly, author of Sixties Ireland: Reshaping the Economy, State and Society, 1957–1973'This is an important and timely book, given its publication during the centenary of the Irish Revolution. Meticulously researched, in archives in Britain and Ireland, it neatly contextualises Dublin's experience of revolution within the experience of the greater World War of 1914–18,' Timothy Bowman, co-author of The British Army and the First World War'A powerful, multivocal account of a decade of violence in Ireland beginning in 1914…. This is a book of sensitive scholarship, one based on a deep knowledge of both the military history and the social history of the men who waged it … it is the best history we have of Dubliners at war, and, like James Joyce's 'The Dead', published in 1914, it treats them with the sympathy and compassion they deserve.' Jay Winter, H-Net'Written in a clear and lively style and resting upon very substantial research … an excellent and illuminating account of how conflict shaped Ireland's capital city during the Irish revolution and is bound to command the wide audience it deserves.' John Gibney, History Ireland'A very significant addition to our knowledge and understanding of the Irish revolution and should be read by everyone wishing to understand it more fully.' Padraig Yeates, Dublin Review of Books'His Easter Week chapters entwine the Royal Dublin Fusiliers' fighting at Hulluch in Belgium with the simultaneous uprising in Dublin.… Grayson's eye for detail lends these passages a cinematic flair, capturing the prayers of both Irish troops abroad and rebels back home as they prepared to go into their respective battles.' Matthew Kovac, LSE Review of Books'Dublin's Great Wars is a fascinating study of the history of Dubliners' wartime experiences during the First World War and the Irish Revolution … This book will appeal to those interested in the history of war and revolution in Ireland, the history of Irish involvement in the First World War and the history of Dublin.' David Durnin, CerclesTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Prelude: Dublin and conflict, 1899–1914; 2. Dublin goes to war; 3. Outbreak, 1914; 4. Stalemate, 1915; 5. Gallipoli: Helles; 6. Gallipoli: Suvla Bay; 7. Preparations; 8. Rising; 9. Falling; 10. Consequences; 11. The Other 1916; 12. Success on the Somme; 13. Snow and sand; 14. Attrition: 1916–17; 15. Learning; 16. Victory from the jaws of defeat; 17. War of Independence; 18. Crossovers; 19. Civil war; 20. Peace; 21. Commemoration; Conclusion: three men.

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Book SynopsisFascinated by history? Wish you knew more? The Illustrated Introductions are here to help. In this lavishly illustrated, accessible guide, find out everything you need to know about the Battle of the Somme.

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Book SynopsisThe full study of a dramatic and daring raid, in stark contrast to the static trench warfare of WW1.

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Book SynopsisThis book which was originally published in 1915 is a window into the world of a century ago, when Woodrow Wilson was wondering whether or not America should enter WWI. Former president Theodore Roosevelt lays out the moral and political case for coming to the aid of our European allies. This book demonstrates that America's issues are relatively unchanged even after one the most changing centuries in the history of mankind.Table of ContentsFor more information, please visit our website at:https://novapublishers.com/shop/america-and-the-world-war/

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Book SynopsisThe 100th anniversary of the outbreak of "the war to end all wars" has already generated substantial historical analysis and media attention. The anniversary of the US entry into the war will spark another round of interest, and this book is both an excellent pictorial introduction and short history of the conflict.

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Book SynopsisWalter Bandazian traces developments which led to the arrest, detention, and finally, the release of Young Turks and their allies accused of committing war crimes during and after World War I against the Christian population of Ottoman Turkey, most notably the Armenians. The primary focus of his work concerns the role played by British authorities in the Near East in addressing the Armenian Genocide and initiating the first international effort to bring war criminals to trial, even before the Nuremberg trials of 1946-49. However, as Bandazian also shows, the anticipated trials never materialized because of several key factors, including the lack of appropriate legal mechanisms, difficulties in securing evidence on the ground, and political opposition from different quarters. Most of the present work is composed of documents which informed British authorities of the guilt of such civil, parliamentary and military functionaries as Memduh Bey in Erzinjan, Arif Fezi Bey in Diyarbakir, Mustafa Abdul Halik in Bitlis, Suleiman Faik Pasha in Harpoot, and others.

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Book SynopsisAfter receiving a bundle of worn letters written by her late grandfather George Black Jack Vowel during the First World War, journalist Jacqueline Carmichael became fascinated with the daily realities and personal stories of those who had lived through that pivotal and harrowing period in history. Reaching beyond the battlefield descriptions found in most history books, Carmichael presents unforgettable accounts filled with drama, hope, and heartbreak culled from journals and letters of Allied soldiers and nurses. From tales of men shot at dawn under charges of desertion or cowardice, to women cross-dressing to get into battle, to a Canadian Member of Parliament whose PTSD-induced death was barely acknowledged by Ottawa for nearly a century, Heard Amid the Guns reflects the human face of war. Featuring profiles of people from every Canadian province and many American states, including soldiers of Indigenous, Asian, South Asian, and African backgrounds, this book is a touching tribute illustrated throughout by WWI-era photos, postcards, documents, and the authors contemporary photos from battlefield sites and monuments.

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Book SynopsisOn 11 November 1923, the fifth anniversary of the Armistice, the memorial for the Fredericton war dead was unveiled. Popular perception is that the process was a simple one: a list of all of those who died in the Great War was compiled and inscribed on the monument. In reality, the truth is much more complex.In Perpetuity brings together the biographies of 110 soldiers from the Fredericton area who died from service during the First World War. The product of an inquiry-based learning project led by social studies teacher James Rowinski, the biographies shed light on the lives of the soldiers, the conditions they experienced during their service, and the process of commemoration following the war. The book includes the biographies of four soldiers that students argue should have been included on the official memorial, including Lieutenant Charles Blair who died by suicide in 1920 and would now likely be recognised as suffering from PTSD.A correction and supplement to official memory, In Perpetuity preserves the memory of Fredericton's war dead - those who both were included and excluded from the official record.In Perpetuity is volume 30 of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

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Book Synopsis“A hospital ... is like a roosting box: a communal space that provides ideal but temporary shelter for [the] vulnerable.” In the aftermath of the First World War, a cash register factory in the west end of Toronto was renovated to treat wounded soldiers returning from war. From 1919 to the 1940s, thousands of soldiers passed through its doors. Some spent the remainder of their lives there. The Roosting Box is an exquisitely written history of the early years of the Christie Street Hospital and how war reshaped Canadian society. What sets it apart from other volumes is the detail about the ordinary people at the heart of the book: veterans learning to live with their injuries and a world irrevocably changed; nurses caring for patients while coming to terms with their own wartime trauma; and doctors pioneering research in prosthetics and plastic surgery or, in the case of Frederick Banting, in a treatment for diabetes. Naming chapters after parts of the body, den Hartog chronicles injuries and treatments, and through the voices of men and women, the struggles and accomplishments of the patients and staff. The cast of characters is diverse — Black, female, Indigenous, and people with all sorts of physical and mental challenges — and their experiences, gleaned from diaries, letters, service records, genealogical research, and interviews with descendants, are surprising and illuminating. An unusual mix of history and story, The Roosting Box offers deeply personal perspectives on healing in the aftermath of war.

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Book SynopsisThe 'Forgotten Voices' of the First World War speak for the final time.LAST POST is very consciously the last word from the handful of First World War survivors who were left alive in 2004. Now they have passed away, our final human connection with the First World War has been broken.Max Arthur, a skilled interviewer, took the very last chance we had to ask questions of those who were there. Now updated to include a new introduction by the author for the centenary of the First World War.Trade ReviewNostalgic photographs add to the book's flavour, lighting up a time when generations predating the modern, pervasie 'me' culture lived and worked for each other. * TRIBUNE *For their devotion to King and Country and for Mr Arthur's work we should all be grateful * CONTEMPORARY REVIEW *one you will want to add to your collection * THE GREAT WAR *They are a remarkable band of men and the book tacitly salutes their courage, endurance and the phlegmatic manner in which many of them dismiss the war as merely a passing phase in their lives * Independent on Sunday *A deeply moving meditation on memory, courage, comradeship and the powerlessness of the common man caught up in political machinery * Evening Standard *Remarkably poignant -- James Holland * Mail on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisFrom the moment the German army moved quietly into Luxemburg on 2 August 1914, to the Armistice on 11 November 1918, the fighting on the Western Front in France and Flanders never stopped. There were quiet periods, just as there were the most intense, savage, huge-scale battles. The war on the Western Front can be thought of as being in three phases: first, a war of movement as Germany attacked France and the Allies sought to halt it; second, the lengthy and terribly costly siege warfare as the entrenched lines proved impossible to crack (late 1914 to mid-1918); and finally a return to mobile warfare as the Allies applied lessons and technologies forged in the previous years. As with previous wars, British Commanders-in-Chief of a theatre of war or campaign were obliged to report their activities and achievements to the War Office in the form of a despatch and those written from the Western Front provide a fascinating, detailed and compelling overview of this part of the First World War. This volume concludes with Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's fascinating despatch, originally published in 1919, on the execution of the fighting on the Western Front.

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Book Synopsis1914 dawned with Britain at peace, albeit troubled by faultlines within and threats without: Ireland trembled on the brink of civil war; suffragette agitation was assuming an ever more violent hue; and suspicions of Germany's ambitions bred a paranoia expressed in a rash of ‘invasion scare' literature. Then when shots rang out in Sara-jevo on 28 June, they set in train a tumble of diplomatic dominos that led to Britain declaring war on Germany. Nigel Jones depicts every facet of a year that changed Britain for ever. From gun-running in Ulster to an attack by suffragettes on a Velasquez painting in the National Gallery; from the launch of HMHS Britannic to cricketer J.T. Hearne's 3000th first-class wicket; from the opening of London's first nightclub to the embarking for Belgium of the BEF, he traces the events of a momentous year from its benign domestic beginnings to its descent into the nightmare of European war. Trade Review'Lavishly illustrated ... Jones has a hawk's eye for fascinating historical detail' Sunday Express.'A terrific account that makes a strong bid for inclusion in any collection' BBC History Magazine.'Excellent ... an exceedingly valuable history of the year as well as being a damned good read ... a brilliant primer for the First World War' The Army Review Service.'A fascinating introduction to the First World War ... a recommended read for anyone interested in discovering what life was really like for ordinary people at this time' Discover Your History.'Elegant and enjoyable ... A superb snapshot of Britain ... an outstanding introduction to the first year of the Great War' Irish Times.'This book captures a society on the edge and ready for change' Good Book Guide.'Jones paints a vivid portrait of a nation increasingly uneasy with itself and its place in the world as the storm clouds started to gather' Choice Magazine.

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Book SynopsisA gripping portrait of life in Britain in a year that shook Europe to its foundations.

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Book SynopsisIn 1918, the Germans launched the Spring Offensive. Aware that American troops would soon be arriving in Europe, the Germans saw this as their last chance to win the war. If they could overcome the Allied armies and reach Paris, victory might be possible. The German offensive was initially a great success. Striking at the Allied line's strongest point, the Chemin des Dames, they burst their way through and made quick progress towards Marne. However, the advance eventually stalled. With supply shortages and lack of reserves, this was to be the 'last ebb' of the German war effort.Rogerson, a young officer in the West Yorkshire Regiment, describes the experiences of his battalion from the Aisne through to the Marne. Fighting under French command, the West Yorkshires were inadequately supported by artillery and practically without help from the air. The 4 tired divisions were forced to fight and run 27 miles across wooded downlands and 3 rivers on emergency rations. The author vividly conveys the bravery and extraordinary resilience of the West Yorkshires, who were able to face up to the terrible ordeal of such a battle without loss of morale. Remarkably for a book of this period, an account by Major-General A. D. von Unruh, which gives the German perspective of the offensive, has been included.

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Book SynopsisFirst World War espionage was a fascinating and dangerous affair, spawning widespread paranoia in its clandestine wake. The hysteria of the age, stoked by those within the British establishment who sought to manipulate popular panic, meant there was no shortage of suspects. Exaggerated claims were rife: some 80,000 Germans were supposedly hidden all over Britain, just waiting for an impending (and imagined) invasion. No one could be trusted - Against this backdrop, as head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department, it was Basil Thomson's responsibility to hunt, arrest and interrogate the potential German spies identifi ed by the nascent British intelligence services. Thomson's story is an extraordinary compendium of sleuthing and secrets from a real-life Sherlock Holmes, following the trails of the many specimens he tracked, including the famous dancer, courtesan and spy, Mata Hari. Yet his activities gained him enemies, as did his criticism of British intelligence, his ambition to control MI5 and his efforts to root out left-wing revolutionaries - which would ultimately prove to be the undoing of his career. Odd People is the insightful and wittily observed account of Thomson's incomparably exciting job, offering us a rare glimpse into the dizzying world of spies and the mind of the detective charged with foiling their elaborate plots. The Dialogue Espionage Classics series began in 2010 with the purpose of bringing back classic out-of-print spy stories that should never be forgotten. From the Great War to the Cold War, from the French Resistance to the Cambridge Five, from Special Operations to Bletchley Park, this fascinating spy history series includes some of the best military, espionage and adventure stories ever told.

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Book SynopsisHuddersfields Roll of Honour 1914-1922 is a detailed account of 3,439 service personnel from Huddersfield who lost their lives during the First World War. In the Preface, HRH The Duke of York KG writes: This publication represents the lifetime work of Margaret Stansfield who sadly passed away in 2012. Margaret spent 30 years compiling the 3,439 biographical entries giving a poignant insight into the background, working lives and families of those who selflessly left Huddersfield to fight for their country never to return. Along with the biographical accounts there are many moving letters to the families of soldiers who lost their lives reflecting an attempt to bring comfort amid the darkness that their loss brought to both families and comrades alike.Table of ContentsForeword: HRH The Duke of York; KG v Maps; Orders of Battle; Introduction: Reverend Paul Wilcock BEM; Roll of Honour; War Memorials and Rolls of Honour; Personal Tribute: Martin Middlebrook; Acknowledgements.

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Book SynopsisThe incredible, moving story of Wiremu Maopo, the last of his line in a large South Island family, who joined the second Maori Contingent and went off to fight in the First World War. Wiremu writes regularly to his friend Virgie, and the story of Wiremu''s life is woven around 40 letters that he penned during the War. All of Wiremu''s siblings died of illness either in childhood or later in life and when he returns from the war ironically he is the only surviving member of the once large family. Wiremu was unaware during and after the war that his girlfriend Phoebe had given birth to a daughter who would carry on his line. The Last Maopo also follows Phoebe''s story and reconnects the Maopo line with the author, Wiremu''s great-granddaughter.

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Book SynopsisThere have been many published collections of soldiers’ diaries and letters from the First World War, but never a firsthand account of one New Zealand family’s life in England during these challenging and frightening years. When her sons, Oswald and Seton, decided they wanted to serve as pilots, which meant enlisting in Britain, Annie Montgomerie decreed that the whole family would go too. So from 1916 to 1919 they lived in London, facing Zeppelin attacks, giving hospitality to young New Zealand friends who left to fight and sometimes never came back, watching Oswald and Seton go off to war, and suffering in the influenza epidemic. Through all this Annie kept a diary, in which she recorded her deep love and concern for her family, her hatred of the war, her forthright, amusing and proudly Kiwi views on the English, and myriad fascinating details about wartime London life. Annie’s granddaughter, Susanna Montgomerie Norris, has transcribed and edited this extraordinary account, along with many letters and diary excerpts from her pilot father, Seton. Richly illustrated with contemporary photographs and other memorabilia, Annie’s War offers a unique and compelling view of a crucial time in world history. Susanna spent many years transcribing and working on her grandmother Annie’s diaries, which were discovered by her cousin, John Montgomerie, who has also supplied a large number of the photos used.

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Book SynopsisOver nearly fifty years, the author has built up an extensive collection of memorabilia from the First and Second World Wars. The author gives talks to school and adult groups about the First World War and Second World War Home Front using his collection to illustrate these talks. This book looks at selected items from the private collection, providing a narrative about the original artefacts that also gives an insight into the life of the individuals who owned them. Fragments is intended as a salute to those that survived the war and as a memorial to those who did not.

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Book SynopsisQuilted images from the FirstWorld War, many created by descendants of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, are depicted in book form and for display to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Beaumont Hamel. Each of the 260 quilt blocks is unique to the craft person who created it; accompanying each of them is a description of the artists inspiration for taking part in the project. The blocks have been sewn into quilts, categorised by theme.

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Book SynopsisThe long-running Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War is one of Te Papas most popular exhibitions, attracting over three million visitors since it opened in 2015. There is still strong visitor interest in the story of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in which almost 3000 New Zealanders lost their lives. Just as the exhibition does so compellingly, so this book deploys Weta Workshops artistry to tell the story of the Gallipoli campaign through eight ordinary New Zealanders, the giants of the exhibition. With fold-out images, behind the scenes detail of how the giants were built and essays by those involved in the exhibition, this book is both a souvenir of Scale of Our War and an engaging way for readers to revisit the Gallipoli campaign.Table of Contents"6 An almost magical power. 9 Pillars from our past. 14 Reimagining a theatre of war. 56 New Zealand and empire. 106 Ordinary New Zealanders. 144 The chosen heroes of Tumatauenga. 164 Stories from Gallipoli. 196 The murals. 214 Image credits. 218 Further Reading. 222 About the authors. 224 Exhibition credits"

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Book SynopsisWorld War I marks a well-known turning point in anthropology, and this volume is the first to examine the variety of forms it took in Europe. Distinct national traditions emerged and institutes were founded, partly due to collaborations with the military. Researchers in the cultural sciences used war zones to gain access to "informants": prisoner-of-war and refugee camps, occupied territories, even the front lines. Anthropologists tailored their inquiries to aid the war effort, contributed to interpretations of the war as a "struggle" between "races", and assessed the "warlike" nature of the Balkan region, whose crises were key to the outbreak of the Great War.Trade Review"[The] combination of carefully developed specific points of research and thorough reexamination of paradigmatic theoretical models should make this volume an indispensable reading and an important point of reference for years to come." Aleksandar Boskovic, Anthropos, 107 (2012) Reviewed in: European Association of Social Anthropologists, (2011), Marius Turda

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Book SynopsisDoris Lessing's first book after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature revisits her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents led.I think my father'''s rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents'' emotions? Yes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without. What is the use of it? It is as if that old war is in my own memory, my own consciousness.'In this extraordinary book, Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, both of them irrevocably damaged by the Great War. Her father wanted the simple life of an English farmer, but shrapnel almost killed him in the trenches, and thereafter he had to wear a wooden leg. Her mother Emily''s great love was a doctor who drowned in the Channel, and she spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital.In the first half of this book, Lessing imagines the lives her parents might have made for themselves had therTrade Review'Writers approaching 90 aren't supposed to write with vigour or experiment with form. But Lessing has never done the expected thing and "Alfred and Emily" is one more exception in an exceptional career.' Blake Morrison, Guardian ‘This tale has a quality at once dreamy and wooden, like beautifully carved wooden dolls. Vividly and urgently written, [it] makes us think about the moral and emotional power of different ways of telling a story.' Financial Times 'Vivid, turbulent, raw with emotion.' Sunday Telegraph 'Quietly extraordinary…this perfectly crafted book is, as Lessing knows, the latest instalment of a remarkable payback.' Observer 'Powerful…it is fascinating to see [Lessing] focus so sharply in her new book on what must be for us all, the most intimate of personal narratives: our parents' lives, what they were, or might have been.' The Times ‘Lessing excels in the portrait of unsatisfactory lives, and together the parts form a poignant experiment.’ Daily Telegraph 'It has the freshness, clarity and emotional acuity that made her first novel "The Grass is Singing" so outstanding. A tribute to a remarkable childhood, and a poignant memoir of the mother whose greatest legacy to her daughter was an invaluable gift for storytelling.’ Literary Review

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Book SynopsisThoroughly researched and beautifully written history.?New York Times Book Review?Absorbing . . . a David-and-Goliath tale of the industrial age.??Wall Street JournalA propulsive human drama that chronicles the mass exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the early years of the twentieth century, and the men who made it possible.Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the United States. Many sailed on steamships from Hamburg.This mass exodus was facilitated by three businessmen whose involvement in the Jewish-American narrative has been largely forgotten: Jacob Schiff, the managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line, who created a transportation network of trains and steamships to carry them across continents and an ocean; and J. P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine (I.M.M.) trust, who tried to monopolize the lucrative steamship business. Though their goals were often contradictory, together they made possible a migration that spared millions from persecution. Descendants of these immigrants included Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Estée Lauder, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice, Lauren Bacall, the Marx Brothers, David Sarnoff, Al Jolson, Sam Goldwyn, Ben Shahn, Hank Greenberg, Moses Annenberg, and many more?including Ujifusa?s great grandparents. That is their legacy.Moving from the shtetls of Russia and the ports of Hamburg to the mansions of New York?s Upper East Side and the picket lines outside of the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, The Last Ships from Hamburg is a history that unfolds on both an intimate and epic scale. Meticulously researched, masterfully told, Ujifusa?s story offers original insight into the American experience, connecting banking, shipping, politics, immigration, nativism, and war?and delivers crucial insight into the burgeoning refugee crisis of our own time.

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Book Synopsis-- Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose CodeThe story of Jennie Jerome Churchill, mother of Winston, a New York born heiress who always lived life on her own terms.Daughter of New York financier Leonard Jerome, Jennie was born into wealth—and scandal.Trade Review"No one writes bright, bold, bad, and beautiful women of history like C.W. Gortner, and he outdoes himself with his latest heroine: Jennie Jerome, American heiress, royal mistress, and mother of Winston Churchill. The American Adventuress shines on every page with Jennie's irrepressible thirst for adventure, love, and everything else life has to offer!" — Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code “Well-written and historically accurate . . . An homage to a couture icon whose influence is still powerful today.” — Kirkus Reviews on Mademoiselle Chanel “Gortner brings history to life in a fascinating study of one woman’s unstoppable ambition.” — Booklist on Mademoiselle Chanel “Sucked me in by the pearls and never let go . . . equal parts grit and glamour . . . if you can’t afford to visit Paris in peak springtime season, reading this book with a glass of wine is a decent substitute.” — Glamour on Mademoiselle Chanel “In a novel as brilliant and complicated as Coco Chanel herself, C. W. Gortner’s prose is so electric and luminous it could be a film, and not just any film, but one of the grandest biopics of our time. Divine!” — Erika Robuck, bestselling author of Hemingway's Girl “In this deliciously satisfying novel, C.W. Gortner tells the epic, rags-to-riches story of how this brilliant, mercurial, self-created woman became a legend.” — Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train, on Mademoiselle Chanel “From her heart-wrenching early years through her decades of struggle and glory, Gabrielle Chanel was fascinating—as is C.W. Gortner’s Mademoiselle Chanel. Coco lives again in this rich tale of brilliance, determination, and fierce self-creation.” — Ania Szado, author of Studio Saint-Ex “A richly imagined, deftly researched novel, in which the ever fascinating Coco Chanel comes to life in all her woe and splendor, her story unfolding as elegantly as a Chanel gown.” — Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls “Enticing . . . well-researched and well-crafted historical novel that leaves the reader satisfied on many levels. ” — New York Journal of Books “Gortner brings to life a woman who was as alluring and captivating as her signature scent. ” — Historical Novels Review

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Book SynopsisTense Future falls into two parts. The first develops a critical account of total war discourse and addresses the resistant potential of acts, including acts of writing, before a future that looks barred or predetermined by war. Part two shifts the focus to long interwar narratives that pit both their scale and their formal turbulence against total war''s portrait of the social totality, producing both ripostes and alternatives to that portrait in the practice of literary encyclopedism. The book''s introduction grounds both parts in the claim that industrialized warfare, particularly the aerial bombing of cities, intensifies an under-examined form of collective traumatization: a pretraumatic syndrome in which the anticipation of future-conditional violence induces psychic wounds. Situating this claim in relation to other scholarship on critical futurities, Saint-Amour discusses its ramifications for trauma studies, historical narratives generally, and the historiography of the interwarTrade ReviewBy moving our vision from earth to sky, from soldiers in the trenches to civilians under air raids, Paul Saint-Amour makes rich and surprising our understanding of the twentieth-century and its literature. Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, and we ourselves emerge in the arresting light of this first modern collective anxiety. * Elaine Scarry, author of Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom *This book is a tour de force, introducing an entirely new approach to the modernist imagination. Saint-Amour makes us hear the undertones of menace in interwar literature, thereby reconfiguring modernist fiction as meditations on disasters to come. * Jay Winter, author of Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History *Paul Saint-Amour reinterprets culture during the years between World War I and World War II as an era of anxious anticipation. Thoughtful, penetrating, and important, Tense Future expands our understanding of war's destructive power. * Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences *Tense Future moves fluently through the cultural records of the First World War, interwar, Second World War, and Cold War. Creating a wholly new archive, Saint-Amour does nothing less than shift the tense of imaginative action in the literature of major record: from memory, which Paul Fussell established as its primary imaginative circumstance, to anticipation; from reverie to dread. Our way of reading the literature of a century of war will be changed by this comprehensive and compelling account. * Vincent Sherry, author of Modernism and the Reinvention of Decadence *Intricately crafted and thoroughly documented, Tense Future not only redefines the modern epic but also lays the groundwork for reconceptualizing the interwar period and perspectives on temporality. * W. T. Martin, CHOICE *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ; Introduction: Traumatic Earliness ; I. Bukimi ; II. The Precincts of Time ; III. Collective Psychosis ; Facing Trauma ; Critical Futurities ; Three Interwars ; Weak Modernism ; Part One ; 1. On the Partiality of Total War ; The Case of L. E. O. Charlton ; Intimations of Totality ; Interwar Air Power Theory ; Rival Preemptions of Law and War ; National Totality and Colonial Air Control ; Bombing Display I ; Bombing Display II ; 2. Perpetual Suspense: Virginia Woolf's Wartime Gothic ; Morphologies of Suspense ; Mark Time ; Mrs. Dalloway and the Gaze of Total War ; The Years: Immunities Lost and Found ; <"Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid>" ; 3. Fantasias of the Archive: Hamilton's Savage and Jenkinson's Manual ; A Promise of Terror to Come ; Savage Foreclosures ; Declining Fertility ; Jenkinson's Manual ; War Archives: Theory and Performance ; Thoughts on Archives in an Air Raid ; The Death Drive of the Archive ; Part Two ; 4. Encyclopedic Modernism ; Against Epic ; Revisiting the Encyclopedie ; The Eleventh ; Encyclopedic Narrative ; Modern Epic ; Pace Bersani ; 5. The Shield of Ulysses ; Ulysses' Encyclopedism ; Encyclopedia Prophetica ; Urban Violence and Amity Lines ; Theater of Total War ; Scattering ; 6. War Shadowing: Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End ; Uncyclopedia Britannica ; Total Worry ; Futures in Furniture ; Conclusion: Perpetual Interwar ; Appendix: Chapter Abstracts ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisMillions were killed and maimed in the senseless brutality of the First World War, but once the armistice was signed the realities were cleansed of their horror by the nature of the burial and commemoration of the dead. In the interwar period, war monuments and cemeteries provided the public with places of worship and martyrs for the civic religion of nationalism. The cult of the fallen soldier blossomed in Germany and other European countries, and people seemed to build war into their lives as a necessary and glorious event - a proof of manhood and loyalty to the flag. Ultimately there was even a process of trivialization, with light comedies, war toys, and battlefield tourism becoming popular.Tracing wartime experience from the Napoleonic Wars to Vietnam, Professor Mosse''s chilling study explores why mankind has drawn the sting of death from modern war and transformed it into an acceptable, even sacred, event.Trade Review'a scholarly book. Paul Fussell, Times Literary Supplement'important and useful study.' George Clare, Jewish Chronicle'George L. Mosse ... has largely devoted his career to plumbing, with impressive learning, the cesspools of the imbecilic and the cruel in the Third Reich. It is a scholarly book.' Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisThe year 2000 marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most original and gripping volumes ever written about the First World War. Fussell illuminates a war that changed a generation and revolutionised the way we see the world. He explores the British experience on the western Front from 1914 to 1918, focusing on the various literary means by which it has been remembered, conventionalized and mythologized. It is also about the literary dimensions of the experience itself. Fussell supplies contexts, both actual and literary, for writers who have most effectively memorialized the Great War as an historical experience with conspicuous imaginative and artistic meaning. These writers include the classic memoirists Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden, and poets David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen. In his new introduction Fussell discusses the critical responses to his work, the authors and works that inspired his own writing, and the elements which influence our undTrade Review"One of the best nonfiction works I've ever read. I'm a huge fan of virtually everything Fussell has ever done, but this unique book, which uses literature and social history to examine World War I, may be his best. Unflinching."--James Gray, he Week "Literary and historical materials, in themselves not unfamiliar, are brought together in a probing, sympathetic, and finally illuminating fashion. It is difficult to think of a scholarly work in recent years that has more deeply engaged the reader at both the intellectual and emotional level."--The New Republic (on the previous edition) "Paul Fussell's Great War and Modern Memory introduced an entirely new and creative way of writing both about war and the literature it generates. It has been a profound influence on historians and literary critics alike. It is a model of intelligence and fine writing and will remain a key text in our culture for decades to come."--John Keegan Praise for the previous edition "Skillful, compassionate....An important contribution to our understanding of how we came to make World War I part of our minds."--Frank Kermode, The New York Times Book Review "One doesn't know quite where to begin to praise this book in which literary and historical materials, in themselves not unfamiliar, are brought together in a probing, sympathetic, and finally illuminating fashion. It is difficult to think of a scholarly work in recent years that has more deeply engaged the reader at both the intellectual and emotional level."--The New Republic "A learned and well-balanced book that is also bright and sensitive....A last irony leaps from these pages: the men of the First World War were heroes as great as the cast of the Iliad, yet their words destroyed the concept of themselves, of all warriors, and of war itself as heroic."--The New YorkerTable of ContentsA Satire Of Circumstance ; The Troglodyte World ; Adversary Proceedings ; Myth, Ritual, and Romance ; Oh What a Literary War ; Theater of War ; Arcadian Recourses ; Soldier Boys ; Persistence and Memory

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Book SynopsisThe Great War of 1914-1918 left a residue of disruption and disillusion that confronted the United States with one of the most wrenching crises in the nation's history. This is a discussion of the impact of World War I on American society. This edition includes an afterword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author David M Kennedy.Trade ReviewKennedy analyzes American' bitter domestic fight "for the character of American economic, social, and political life." Wars on the American homefront haven't received their proper historical treatment, but Kennedy's seminal work begins to fill that void. * Chronicles *

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Book SynopsisThis is a completely new interpretation of the First World War. Dr Offer weaves together the economic and social history of the English-speaking world, the Pacific Basin, and Germany, with the development of food production and consumption. He argues that the roots of Germany''s defeat went back to the late-Victorian decline of British agriculture and the development of Canada, Australia, and the United States as agrarian exporters, while the agrarian interests of America and Australia were crucial in shaping the peace. The book examines the relation between economic and military power, and legal and moral questions of selecting civilians as a strategic target.Trade ReviewOffer has opened up a rich seam of enquiry, as well as producing a masterly and fascinating book...a magnificently original piece of research * Economic History Review *Dr Offer's breadth of vision is remarkable, his scholarship is challenging and his eye for the telling detail is keen. In range and depth this book would be hard to equal; and its style and structure make it something of a rarity, for it is as enjoyable as it is important. * Times Higher Educational Supplement *a brilliant, deeply disturbing and intellectually restless account... For students of the period, this book is full of insights... Offer has no competition at all in his marvellous discussion of the imperial dimension of agrarian history, or of its poltiical and diplomatic meaning. Overall, this book will open a new debate... It is historical writing of the highest order: shrewd, compassionate, occasionally moving, always alive. * Rural History *This is a superb piece of historical writing. * Journal of Economic History *Offer has opened up a rich seam of enquiry, as well as producing a masterly and fascinating book...a magnificently original piece of research * Economic History Review *Dr Offer's breadth of vision is remarkable, his scholarship is challenging and his eye for the telling detail is keen. In range and depth this book would be hard to equal; and its style and structure make it something of a rarity, for it is as enjoyable as it is important. * Times Higher Educational Supplement *a brilliant, deeply disturbing and intellectually restless account... For students of the period, this book is full of insights... Offer has no competition at all in his marvellous discussion of the imperial dimension of agrarian history, or of its poltiical and diplomatic meaning. Overall, this book will open a new debate... It is historical writing of the highest order: shrewd, compassionate, occasionally moving, always alive. * Rural History *This is a superb piece of historical writing. * Journal of Economic History *Table of ContentsList of plates; List of tables; List of figures; Introduction: Economic and social interpretation of the First World War; Part I: How was Germany defeated?: Society under siege: Germany, 1914-1918; Food reform and food science; Did Germany really starve?; Food and the German State; Collapse; Part II: The Agrarian Bond: The United States, Canada, and Australia: Late-Victorian Britain - an import economy; Causes of the Agricultural Depression, 1870-1924; The sod House against the manor house; `Like rats in a trap' - British urban society and overseas opportunties; Coast, interior, and metropolis; Wheat and Empire in Canada; Asian labour on the Pacific rim: The struggle for exclusion, 1860-1907; Part III: The Atlantic ori entation: Fear of famine in British war plans, 1890-1908; Power and plenty: Naval mercantilism, 1905-1908; The dominion dimension; Morality and Admiralty: `Jacky' Fisher, economic warfare, and International law; Blockade and its enemies, 1909-1912; Preparation and action, 1912-1914; Part IV: The other side of the North Sea: Economic development and national security in Wilhelmian Germany; Germany: Economic preparation and the decision for war; `A second decision for war' - The U-boat campaign; Neither dominion nor peace: Germany after the Armistice; Conclusion; List of sources cited; Index

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Book SynopsisThe existence of the Schlieffen plan has been one of the basic assumptions of twentieth-century military history. It was the perfect example of the evils of German militarism: aggressive, mechanical, disdainful of politics and of public morality. The Great War began in August 1914 allegedly because the Schlieffen plan forced the German government to transform a Balkan quarrel into a World War by attacking France. And, in the end, the Schlieffen plan failed at the battle of the Marne.Yet it has always been recognized that the Schlieffen plan included inconsistencies which have never been satisfactorily explained. On the basis of newly discovered documents from German archives, Terence Zuber presents a radically different picture of German war planning between 1871 and 1914, and concludes that, in fact, there never really was a ''Schlieffen plan''.Trade ReviewZuber's scholarly work will play an important role in the continuing debates on military planning and on its relationship to the coming of World War One. * Journal of European Studies *Zuber has produced an important work that throws much light on war planning and also on the process by which strategic interpretations become part of historiography. * Journal of European Studies *Zuber's new work is undoubtedly intellectually exciting, and has opened up new fronts in military and diplomatic history. * Gary Sheffield, Times Literary Supplement *the most important book on World War I in decades * Robert Citino, author of The German Way of War *All the older literature now needs to be revised in the light of Zuber * Sir Hew Strachan, author of The First World War: To Arms *Table of Contents1. Inventing the Schlieffen plan ; 2. Moltke's Ostaufmarsch, 1871-1886 ; 3. Fortresses, spies, and crisis, 1886-1890 ; 4. Schlieffen's war plan, 1891-1905 ; 5. Moltke's war plan, 1906-1914 ; 6. Excuses and accusations ; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe German Empire was founded in January 1871 not only on the basis of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck''s ''blood and iron'' policy but also with the support of liberal nationalists. Under Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany became the dynamo of Europe. Its economic and military power were pre-eminent; its science and technology, education, and municipal administration were the envy of the world; and its avant-garde artists reflected the ferment in European culture. But Germany also played a decisive role in tipping Europe''s fragile balance of power over the brink and into the cataclysm of the First World War, eventually leading to the empire''s collapse in military defeat and revolution in November 1918.With contributions from an international team of twelve experts in the field, this volume offers an ideal introduction to this crucial era, taking care to situate Imperial Germany in the larger sweep of modern German history, without suggesting that Nazism or the Holocaust were ineviTrade Reviewoffers a useful first port of call for students interested in Imperial Germany. * Lars Fischer, Canadian Journal of History *useful, informative, and entertaining in equal measure. * Ewald Frie, German Historical Institute London Bulletin *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Bismarckian Germany ; 2. Wilhelmine Germany ; 3. Economic and social developments ; 4. Religion and confessional conflict ; 5. Culture and the arts ; 6. Gendered Germany ; 7. The bourgeoisie and reform ; 8. Political culture and democratization ; 9. Militarism and radical nationalism ; 10. Transnational Germany ; 11. War and revolution ; 12. Looking forward ; Further Reading ; Chronology ; Index

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Book SynopsisTo Arms is Hew Strachan''s most complete and definitive study of the opening of the First World War. Now, key sections from this magisterial work are published as individual paperbacks, each complete in itself, and with a new introduction by the author. The First World War was costly in treasure as well as lives. Before its outbreak many commentators reckoned that the great powers could not afford to fight or that economic dislocation would bring war to a rapid close. They were wrong. Ways were found to fund the fighting that went beyond conventional devices like taxation or domestic borrowing. Britain managed to raise much of the money which it and its allies needed in the United States, so implicating America in the war long before its formal entry in April 1917. This is the first full history of how the war was financed. It resulted in hyper-inflation in the 1920s and, in due course, in New York''s displacement of London as the world''s money market. Its effects are still with us toTable of Contents1. Introduction ; 2. The Gold Standard ; 3. Financial Mobilization ; 4. The Loss of Budgetary Control ; 5. Taxation ; 6. Domestic Borrowing ; 7. Foreign Borowing

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Book SynopsisG. R. Searle''s absorbing narrative history breaks conventional chronological barriers to carry the reader from England in 1886, the apogee of the Victorian era with the nation poised to celebrate the empress queen''s golden jubilee, to 1918, as the ''war to end all wars'' drew to a close leaving England to come to term with its price - above all in terms of human life, but also in the general sense that things would never be the same again. This was an age of extremes: a period of imperial pomp and circumstance, with a political elite preoccupied with display and ceremony, alongside the growing cult of the simple life; the zenith of imperialism with its idealization of war on the one hand, the start of the Labour Party, a socialist renaissance, and welfare politics on the other; and a radical challenging of traditional gender stereotypes in the face of the prevailing cult of masculinity. Under Professor Searle''s historical microscope, all the details of daily life spring into sharp rTrade ReviewReview from previous edition This book deserves to become a standard work. It is reliable, lucid, even-handed and up-to-date...Nowhere has Edwardian social history been so revealingly synthesised. * The Spectator *A masterful, lucidly written and well proportioned survey over the whole range of national life. * Paul Smith, Times Literary Supplement *This is a marvellous book in its breadth, its comprehensiveness and, given its length, the enormous pleasure it has been to read. Necessarily a work of synthesis, it efficiently weaves together telling quotes, examples and statistics to conjure up the late Victorian and Edwardian world. * Peter Catterall, History Today *Table of ContentsPART I. ENGLAND IN 1886 ; PART II. LATE VICTORIAN ENGLAND 1886-1899 ; PART III. EDWARDIAN ENGLAND ; PART IV. LEISURE, CULTURE, AND SCIENCE ; PART V. THE GREAT WAR

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Book SynopsisAn expert on German military history offers the first extensive, English-language study of one of the critical campaigns of World War I.The Eastern Front in World War I has been neglected for too long.Table of ContentsMaps Series Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Strategic Setting 2. Strategic Decisions and Coalition Warfare 3. Forces, Plans, and Preparations 4. Punching the Hole: May 2–5, 1915 5. The Capture of Przemysl: May 6–June 6, 1915 6. Liberating Lemberg: June 6–24, 1915 7. Decisions and Preparations: June 25–July 13, 1915 8. The Conquest of Poland: July 13–August 31, 1915 9. Assessments Notes Bibliography Index A photo essay follows page 68

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