History - World War I Centenary 1914-1918: Books

Empires, Soldiers, and Citizens 2/e offers a vivid range of eyewitness perspectives - from female munitions workers to Indian troops in France - which explore the social, cultural, and military dimensions of World War I. This second edition includes added material to reflect the very latest historical thinking.

In The Lost History of 1914, Jack Beatty offers a highly original view of World War I, testing against fresh evidence the long-dominant assumption that it was inevitable. "Most books set in 1914 map the path leading to war," Beatty writes. "This one maps the multiple paths that led away from it."

The Sleepwalkers reveals in gripping detail how the crisis leading to World War I unfolded. Drawing on fresh sources, it traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute, action-packed narrative that cuts among the key decision centers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade. Distinguished historian Christopher Clark examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914 and details the mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals that drove the crisis forward in a few short weeks.

From 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.

This monumental, dramatic photographic narrative captures the war from the early arms race that developed around the massing of prewar battleship fleets to the final moments of the conflict with the sinking of the German fleet in Scapa. The photographs span the many battlefronts throughout the world: from the British Isles to the south Atlantic, across Europe and the Ottoman Empire, Sudan and East Africa, Jerusalem and Damascus.

The “Great War” claimed nearly 40 million lives and set the stage for World War II, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. One hundred years later, historians are beginning to recognize how unnecessary it was. In Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!,acclaimed political psychologist Richard Ned Lebow examines the chain of events that led to war and what could reasonably have been done differently to avoid it. In this highly original and intellectually challenging book, he constructs plausible worlds, some better, some worse, that might have developed.

In the perfect match of subject and author, John S. D. Eisenhower, a noted military historian, presents the definitive account of the birth of the modern American army and its decisive role in World War I. With the help of his wife Joanne, Eisenhower captures the viewpoints of the actual participants, blending a narrative told from the perspective of top officers with the stories of average soldiers. Drawing on diaries and memoirs, he brings each engagement to life, from the initial planning to the actual battlefield experiences of soldiers whose exploits at Belleau Woods and along the Meuse-Argonne would become the stuff of legend.

During and especially after World War I, the millions of black-clad widows on the streets of Europe’s cities were a constant reminder that war caused carnage on a vast scale. But widows were far more than just a reminder of the war’s fallen soldiers; they were literal and figurative actresses in how nations crafted their identities in the interwar era. In this extremely original study, Erika Kuhlman compares the ways in which German and American widows experienced their postwar status, and how that played into the cultures of mourning in their two nations: one defeated, the other victorious.

From the outset of World War I, French doctors faced an apparent epidemic of puzzling neurological and psychiatric illnesses among soldiers. As they attempted to understand the causes of these illnesses, doctors organized specialized centers near the front, where they submitted soldiers to swift, humiliating treatments and then returned them to duty. At home, they interned the scores of civilians who succumbed to the war's strains in decrepit asylums or left them to fend for themselves. In Treating the Trauma of the Great War, Gregory M. Thomas explores the psychological effects of the war on French citizens, showing how doctors' understanding of mental illness produced deep, tangible effects in the lives of the men and women who suffered.

The Millionaires' Unit is the story of a gilded generation of young men from the zenith of privilege: a Rockefeller, the son of the head of the Union Pacific Railroad, several who counted friends and relatives among presidents and statesmen of the day. They had it all and, remarkably by modern standards, they were prepared to risk it all to fight a distant war in France. Driven by the belief that their membership in the American elite required certain sacrifice, schooled in heroism and the nature of leadership, they determined to be first into the conflict, leading the way ahead of America's declaration that it would join the war.

Hero of the Angry Sky draws on the unpublished diaries, correspondence, informal memoir, and other personal documents of the U.S. Navy's only flying "ace" of World War I to tell his unique story.