First World War Books

Book SynopsisIs it true that the German army, invading Belgium and France in August 1914, perpetrated brutal atrocities? Or are accounts of the deaths of thousands of unarmed civilians mere fabrications constructed by fanatically anti-German Allied propagandists? Based on research in the archives of Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, this pathbreaking book uncovers the truth of the events of autumn 1914 and explains how the politics of propaganda and memory have shaped radically different versions of that truth. John Horne and Alan Kramer mine military reports, official and private records, witness evidence, and war diaries to document the crimes that scholars have long denied: a campaign of brutality that led to the deaths of some 6500 Belgian and French civilians. Contemporary German accounts insisted that the civilians were guerrillas, executed for illegal resistance. In reality this claim originated in a vast collective delusion on the part of German soldiers. The authors establish

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Book SynopsisThis biography is a rare eyewitness account of the horrors of a little-known, often denied genocide, in which hundereds of thousands of Armenian and Pontic Greek minorities in Turkey were killed during and after World War 1.

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Book SynopsisJustin McCarthy, Professor of History, University of Louisville, USATrade Review'Aiming to challenge common notions and ideas, the is highly argumentative, something also reflected in its style. The book forces one to reflect again on the merits and faults of the world order versus the old one, and shows that what seems human progress is sometimes gained only with considerable, and unnecessary, sacrifice.' Middle East Journal

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Book Synopsis1 July 1916: the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The hot, hellish day in the fields of northern France that has dominated our perception of the First World War for just shy of a century. The shameful waste; the pointlessness of young lives lost for the sake of a few yards; the barbaric attitudes of the British leaders; the horror and ignominy of failure. All have occupied our thoughts for generations. Yet are we right to view the Somme in this way?Drawing on a vast number of sources such as letters, diaries and numerous archives, Bloody Victory describes in vivid detail the physical conditions, the combat and exceptional bravery against the odds but it also, uniquely, captures how the Somme defined the twentieth century in so many ways. This is an utterly gripping new analysis of one of the most iconic campaigns in history.Trade ReviewRequired reading . . . A thoughtful and important book by a first-rate historian . . . It is a proper history of the battle, not simply an agonising account of its first day . . . He is supremely skilful in charting what he terms the battle's "shifting history and enduring memory" . . . There is something about the Somme that is imprinted onto my heart, and I am grateful that this book has helped me put it into a context that goes beyond time, place, courage and suffering * Richard Holmes, *A sweeping and authoritative re-examination of the battle . . . Bloody Victory is a magnificent and powerful book, destined to become the standard work on the subject * Christopher Silvester, Daily Express *Comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and vividly written . . . His new findings and his provocative conclusions will be of exceptional importance * David Stevenson *Philpott argues that nearly everything we think we know about the Somme . . . is either wrong or a misinterpretation of events . . . After reading this ambitious narrative, it becomes impossible to see the Somme as a futile engagement in a futile conflic * Nick Rennison, Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLER • The definitive account of the Great War from one of our most eminent military historians. Elegantly written, clear, detailed, and omniscient.... Keegan is...perhaps the best military historian of our day. —The New York Times Book Review The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times—modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society—and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment. The First World War probes the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself int

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Book SynopsisTrade Review#6 on the New York Times Bestseller list in the monthly "Fashion, Manners and Customs" category for July 2016 Wall Street Journal "Beguiling... Stuffed with eye-catching detail and apt quotations." Financial Times "Tinniswood gives us many entertaining stories about the whimsical extravagances of the new country-housers... The Long Weekend is a celebration of fantasy and yearning cunningly wrapped up in pragmatism and practicality: about ancient castles with top-plumbing." The Economist "An engaging new account of inter-war country-house life... Mr. Tinniswood provides rich detail from all corners, uncovering plenty of angst, but also much optimism -- until 1939." The Guardian (UK) "Swans in the moat, inglenooks and romantic conservatism ... but Adrian Tinniswood's hugely enjoyable, unsnobbish book uncovers another, more subversive, side to the story." The London Review of Books (UK) "[The] book combines a panoramic view of life and architecture in the interwar years with pin-sharp detail and the sort of springy prose that comes with a complete command of the material." Library Journal "[Tinniswood] reveals the English country house as a vibrant enterprise, benefitting from new owners, money, and architects bringing contemporary ideas to the art of country living. Informative and entertaining, Tinniswood's meticulous research brings us familiar names, such as the Astors and Edward VIII, while introducing us to lesser-known homeowners who wished to create their own modernist vision." Publishers Weekly "Tinniswood elegantly explores the glamorous interwar age of English rural getaways, revealing the not-so-secret affairs of the inhabitants and the reinterpretation of architectural and interior design... Tinniswood's lovely chronological ode to a past lifestyle brims with tales of the elite's tumultuous weekends and shows how the country house's purpose changed with the times as the old social order came to a close." Booklist "With scholarly aplomb and gossipy relish, historian Tinniswood pulls open the grand front doors of these captivating castles to reveal their innermost workings and outward allure. Now that Downton Abbey is no more, fans of this halcyon, refined world can once again immerse themselves in Britain's quintessential golden era." Washington Times "Still yearning for Downton Abbey? Adrian Tinniswood's The Long Weekend Life in the English Country House, 1918-1939 is probably the necessary antidote. A wonky, veritable tell-all, a who's who of British gentry... Tales about piracy, crookery and shenanigans involving the supremely well-to-do are always intriguing and entertaining." Star Tribune "Preposterous plot lines apart, "Downton" writer Julian Fellowes drew on real people and events for his wildly popular PBS soap opera, as does historian Adrian Tinniswood for his prodigiously researched, rather more scholarly - but no less entertaining - chronicle of country house life between the two world wars." The Spectator, (UK) "[A] deliciously jaunty and wonderfully knowledgeable book... In a series of super-generously illustrated chapters Tinniswood displays a terrific insider's grasp of gossip, while cramming his text with the stories of sport, sex, food, royalty, design, ruination and joy that defined these mansions... [A] meticulous, irresistible story." Sunday Times, Richard Davenport-Hines, (UK) "Tinniswood is a learned architectural scholar without a jot of pedantry. He has produced a luscious, summery book, full of amiable anecdotes and photographs of striking interiors, celebrating headstrong optimists who defied the defeatism of the times. The Long Weekend resembles a well-kept hothouse festooned with fruit ripe for the plucking." Sunday Telegraph (UK) "[W]onderfully opulent, richly textured...In telling us how the English country house changed, [Tinniswood] is, of course, telling us how England changed, too." Literary Review (UK) "Tinniswood's book is erudite, funny, and oddly poignant." Country Life (UK)Book of the Week "[H]ighly enjoyable... this is a delicious cocktail of a book, combining many ingredients and presenting an informed survey of the interwar years as seductively as that period (at least in this rarified sphere) demands." Kirkus "[A] richly researched story about the rise and fall and transformation of country-house living... An enjoyable tour with a genial, informed, devoted docent." The Times, Book of the Week, (UK) "It can't have been easy, but Adrian Tinniswood and his publishers should be congratulated for issuing this elegant, encyclopaedic and entertaining history of English country house life between the wars without ever once mentioning Downton Abbey... The Long Weekend supplies a potent fix of period locations, upstairs-downstairs drama and higher gossip -- all of it factual -- for the most Downton-addicted of readers... We are in the company of a confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly... Tinniswood expands our Sunday evening viewing with the kind of detail you can't invent, from gay badinage with the butler to Benzedrine in the cocktails, from the zebras at Leeds Castle to the Brazilian capybaras that ran wild at Eaton Hall. The Long Weekend deserves to be on every costume drama producer's bookshelf." The Daily Mail (UK) "[A] masterpiece of social history."Table of Contents1. The House Party 2. Everyone Sang 3. It Is Ours 4. The King's Houses 5. Reinstatement 6. A New Culture 7. Lutyens 8. Making Plans 9. Home Decorating 10. The New Georgians 11. The Princess Bride and Her Brothers 12. My New-Found-Land, My Kingdom 13. A Queer Streak 14. Field Sports 15. In Which We Serve 16. The Political House 17. The Old Order Doomed

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAn Economist Best Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal Best Book for History Buffs Mark Mazower, Financial Times "A remarkably readable, judicious, and well-researched account of the Ottoman war in Anatolia and the Arab provinces." New York Times "Gripping... An extraordinary tale." Economist "[An] assured account... The book stands alongside the best histories." Wall Street Journal "The book is not only exact and readable but also has the elements of a thriller and thus is all the more remarkable in view of its thoroughness in covering a linguistically and historically difficult subject." New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "Rogan offers an intricately worked but very readable account of a theocracy's demise." New Yorker "This engrossing history unfolds in the Middle Eastern theatre of the First World War, capturing the complex array of battles, brutalities, and alliances that brought down the six-hundred-year-old Ottoman Empire... Rogan argues that the empire's ultimate demise was the result not of losing the war but of a clumsily negotiated peace. His balanced narrative unearths many seeds of current conflicts." Daily Beast "The Fall of the Ottomans is a remarkably lucid and accessible work of history... [Rogan] seems equally at home explaining the parameters of Ottoman grand strategy and the tensions of the British-Arab Alliance as he is at conjuring up the unique challenges of maneuver warfare in the Sinai and Palestine, or the brutal stalemate in the Gallipoli trenches. Telling quotations from diplomats, field commanders, and ordinary soldiers of all the combatants lend the narrative a powerful sense of immediacy." Sunday Telegraph (UK) "[A] timely and capacious history which leaves the over-trodden Flanders mud and football truces in favor of the various campaigns--at best imperfectly understood, at worst woefully unfamiliar--which the Allies waged in the Middle East. It's in the former Ottoman lands, traumatised by war, sectarianism and repression, that the legacies of the Great War continue to be grievously felt... Here's a book whose instructive geopolitical relevance should be immediately apparent... [A] compelling and brilliant book." Washington Independent Review of Books "[A] fresh and meticulous portrait of the Ottoman Empire: modern and modernizing, then declining, and eventually kaput." Spectator (UK) "[A] masterly history of the Ottoman empire in its final years... Eugene Rogan has written a meticulously researched, panoramic and engrossing history. The book is essential reading for understanding the evolution of the modern Middle East and the root causes of nearly all the conflicts that now plague the area. The Fall of the Ottomans is an altogether splendid work of historical writing." New York Review of Books "Admirable and thoroughly researched... A comprehensive history of World War I in the Middle East." The Times (UK) "[A] comprehensive, lucid and revealing history... This book will surely become the definitive history of the war." Guardian (UK) "Compared to the western front, the Middle East was a sideshow for all but those who called it home. Rogan has rightly put these Turks, Armenians and Arabs at the centre of his account."Table of Contents1. A Revolution and Three Wars, 1908--1913 2. The Peace Before the Great War 3. A Global Call to Arms 4. Opening Salvos: Basra, Aden, Egypt, and the Eastern Mediterranean 5. L aunching Jihad: Ottoman Campaigns in the Caucasus and the Sinai 6. The Assault on the Dardanelles 7. The Annihilation of the Armenians 8. The Ottoman Triumph at Gallipoli 9. The Invasion of Mesopotamia 10. The Siege of Kut 11. The Arab Revolt 12. L osing Ground: The Fall of Baghdad, the Sinai, and Jerusalem 13. From Armistice to Armistice Conclusion: The Fall of the Ottomans

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisWhile most previous work on America's participation in the Great War has focused on alliance with Great Britain, Robert Bruce argues that the impact of the Franco-American relationship was of greater significance, making the case that the French were the main military partner of the US.Trade ReviewAn insightful book that adds considerably to our understanding of the Great War and the significance of the Franco-American friendship. Bruce reminds us that neither the French nor the Americans could have succeeded in that war without the assistance of the other. Robert Doughty, author of Seeds of Disaster: Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939; ""Engagingly written, Bruce's study covers a lot of ground and presents a convincing thesis. His analysis of the crucial Franco-American military relationship should lead to a more complete and more sophisticated understanding of the ending of the war."" Leonard V. Smith, coauthor of France and the Great War, 1914-1918

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Book Synopsis50,000 Irishmen died in World War I - all of whom were volunteers. The Irish were mobilized in three divisions - the 10th, the 16th and the 36th as well as in the traditional Irish regiments. This book looks at these regiments and their activities during the 1914-18 war.

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Book SynopsisOn September 26, 1918, more than one million American soldiers prepared to assault the German-held Meuse-Argonne region of France. This book offers accounts of combat, studded with portraits of remarkable soldiers like Pershing, Harry Truman, George Patton, and Alvin York.

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Book SynopsisNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Economist • The Christian Science Monitor • Bloomberg Businessweek • The Globe and MailFrom the bestselling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I.   The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a golden, happy, and prosperous future. But instead, complex personalities and rivalries, colonialism and ethnic nationalisms, and shifting alliances helped to bring about the failure of the long peace and the outbreak of a war that transformed Europe and the world.   The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the mi

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Book SynopsisPanikos Panayi is Senior Lecturer in History at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.Trade Review'... will remain a useful reference work on the subject for some time to come.'The Slavonic Review'... will serve as the authoritative work on the subject for decades to come.'Choice'... a sound piece of historical research which fills a definite gap in our understanding of the British home front during the Great War, not to mention the position of aliens within British society.'German HistoryTable of ContentsVictorian and Edwardian background; measures against alien enemies; internment and repatriation; the experience of internment; measures against German business interests; anti-German sentiment: spy-fever, anti-alienism and the hidden hand; anti-German manifestations - witchhunts, boycotts, and movements; anti-German riots; support for alien enemies.

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