Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction; the extraordinary and forgotten story behind the building of the First World War cemeteries, due to the efforts of one remarkable and visionary man, Fabian Ware.
This book uses Portland, Oregon to bring to life the transformation of U.S. cities during the first truly national war mobilization effort. World War I had an enormous impact on urban life and the relationship between cities and the federal government that has been almost entirely unexplored until now.
Explores and explains the grand strategic shift that occurred in the century before the war, the British Army's regeneration after its drubbings in its fight against the Boer in South Africa, its almost calamitous experience of the first twenty days' fighting in Flanders.
2018 marks the centenary not only of the Armistice but also of women gaining the vote. A Lab of One's Own commemorates both anniversaries by exploring how the War gave female scientists, doctors, and engineers unprecedented opportunities to undertake endeavours normally reserved for men.
This book is a result of twelve years work, providing a detailed account of the events of The Battle of the Boar's Head, 30th June 1916 at the village of Richebourg. It is a testament to those men who served and gave up their lives in the service of their King, Country, and the Southdown Battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment, Lowther's Lambs.
Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past' GuardianWith a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history.
How widespread belief in fortune-telling, prophecies, spirits, magic, and protective talismans gripped the battlefields and home fronts of Europe during the First World War.
A comparative study of the cultural impact of the Great War on British and German societies. Taking medievalism as a mode of public commemorations as its focus, this book unravels the British and German search for historical continuity and meaning in the shadow of an unprecedented human catastrophe.
Forgetful Remembrance offers a new approach to the study of memory by focusing on vernacular historiographies and the notion of forgetting. Using the 1798 Irish Rebellion, Beiner explores how communities try to obscure inconvenient and uncomfortable events from the past.
Looks at all the practical ways in which animals were essential to the war effort, but is equally interested in their roles as companions, mascots and morale boosters - on land, in the air and at sea.
The story of the First World War in the Middle East - and how it swept away five hundred years of Ottoman rule to lay the foundations for the troubled Middle East that we know today.
The First World War killed around eight million men and bled Europe dry. Was the sacrifice worth it? Was it all really an inevitable cataclysm and were the Germans a genuine threat? Was the war, as is often asserted, greeted with popular enthusiasm? Why did men keep on fighting when conditions were so wretched? This title deals with questions.
One hundred years on from the Battle of the Somme, Breakdown tells the unusual and little-known story of shell shock in one of the bloodiest battles ever fought by the British army.
Love of an Unknown Soldier is the publication of a series of intimate documents that were found in a dug-out of an abandoned gun position, resulting in an extremely moving love story.
An atlas that sets out the course of the Great War, from its origins to its terrible legacy. It illustrates its military, social, political and economic aspects.
A Downing Street diary with a difference; offering a unique record and a fascinating insight into the British government during WWI, written by Margot Asquith, the wife of the prime minister, H. H. Asquith.
The declaration of war in August 1914 was to change Britain and British society irrevocably as conflict came to dominate almost every aspect of civilian life for the next four years.
The dramatic step-by-step account of how the assassination of an Austrian archduke in the Balkans led to the cataclysm of the First World War over five fateful weeks in the summer of 1914.
2014 will mark one hundred years since the outbreak of the First World War. To mark the date, this anthology collects images and poems from some of the UK's cultural, political and literary figures. It includes short stories, personal letters, newspaper articles, scripts and paintings.
At the age of only 36, Sir Mark Sykes was signatory to the Sykes-Picot agreement, one of the most reviled treaties of modern times. A century later, Christopher Sykes' lively biography of his grandfather reassesses his life and work, and the political instability and violence in the Middle East attributed to it.
One of the great questions in the ongoing discussions and debate about the First World War is why did winning take so long and exact so appalling a human cost? The author argues that from day one of the war Britain was wrong-footed by absurdly faulty French military doctrine and paid, as a result, an unnecessarily high price in casualties.
In this astonishing new history of wartime Britain, historian Stephen Bourne unearths the fascinating stories of the gay men who served in the armed forces and at home, and brings to light the great unheralded contribution they made to the war effort.
The first book in 90 years dedicated to the daring and courage of the airmen and mechanics of the Australian Flying Corps - a tale of a war fought thousands of feet above the trenches from which only one in two emerged unscathed.
The First World War was a human catastrophe but it also saw a dynamic development of new weapons and a new kind of war; Our Land at War takes you on a journey to the key places that witnessed this war effort and those at all levels of society who brought about the change.
War with Germany, so often imagined and predicted, finally broke out when people were least prepared for it. Here, among a crowded cast of unforgettable characters, are suffragettes, armed with axes, and celebrity aviators thrilling spectators by looping the loop. This book tells the story of England in 1914.
Presents an anthology of writing on the First World War. This book offers a collection of personal and defining moments that offer insight into the Great War as it was experienced and as it was remembered.
On 1 July, 1916, a continuous line of British soldiers climbed out from the trenches of the Somme into No Man's Land and began to walk slowly towards dug-in German troops armed with machine-guns and defended by thick barbed wire. This is an account of the blackest day in the history of the British army.
The true story of Allied nursing in the First World War, offering a compelling account of nurses' wartime experiences and a clear appraisal of their work and its contribution to the Allied cause.