The Legacy of the Great War

The Legacy of the Great War PDF Author: Jay Winter
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826271995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
In late 2007 and early 2008, world-renowned historians gathered in Kansas City for a series of public forums on World War I. Each of the five events focused on a particular topic and featured spirited dialogue between its prominent participants. In spontaneous exchanges, the eminent scholars probed each other’s arguments, learned from each other, and provided insights not just into history but also into the way scholars think about their subject alongside and at times in conflict with their colleagues. Representing a fourth generation of writers on the Great War and a transnational rather than an international approach, prominent historians Niall Ferguson and Paul Kennedy, Holger Afflerbach and Gary Sheffield, John Horne and Len Smith, John Milton Cooper and Margaret MacMillan, and Jay Winter and Robert Wohl brought to the proceedings an exciting clash of ideas. The forums addressed topics about the Great War that have long fascinated both scholars and the educated public: the origins of the war and the question of who was responsible for the escalation of the July Crisis; the nature of generalship and military command, seen here from the perspectives of a German and a British scholar; the private soldiers’ experiences of combat, revealing their strategies of survival and negotiation; the peace-making process and the overwhelming pressures under which statesmen worked; and the long-term cultural consequences of the war—showing that the Great War was “great” not merely because of its magnitude but also because of its revolutionary effects. These topics continue to reverberate, and in addition to shedding new light on the subjects, these forums constitute a glimpse at how historical writing happens. American society did not suffer the consequences of the Great War that virtually all European countries knew—a lack of perspective that the National World War I Museum seeks to correct. This book celebrates that effort, helping readers feel the excitement and the moral seriousness of historical scholarship in this field and drawing more Americans into considering how their own history is part of this story.

The Legacy of the Great War

The Legacy of the Great War PDF Author: Jay Winter
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826271995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
In late 2007 and early 2008, world-renowned historians gathered in Kansas City for a series of public forums on World War I. Each of the five events focused on a particular topic and featured spirited dialogue between its prominent participants. In spontaneous exchanges, the eminent scholars probed each other’s arguments, learned from each other, and provided insights not just into history but also into the way scholars think about their subject alongside and at times in conflict with their colleagues. Representing a fourth generation of writers on the Great War and a transnational rather than an international approach, prominent historians Niall Ferguson and Paul Kennedy, Holger Afflerbach and Gary Sheffield, John Horne and Len Smith, John Milton Cooper and Margaret MacMillan, and Jay Winter and Robert Wohl brought to the proceedings an exciting clash of ideas. The forums addressed topics about the Great War that have long fascinated both scholars and the educated public: the origins of the war and the question of who was responsible for the escalation of the July Crisis; the nature of generalship and military command, seen here from the perspectives of a German and a British scholar; the private soldiers’ experiences of combat, revealing their strategies of survival and negotiation; the peace-making process and the overwhelming pressures under which statesmen worked; and the long-term cultural consequences of the war—showing that the Great War was “great” not merely because of its magnitude but also because of its revolutionary effects. These topics continue to reverberate, and in addition to shedding new light on the subjects, these forums constitute a glimpse at how historical writing happens. American society did not suffer the consequences of the Great War that virtually all European countries knew—a lack of perspective that the National World War I Museum seeks to correct. This book celebrates that effort, helping readers feel the excitement and the moral seriousness of historical scholarship in this field and drawing more Americans into considering how their own history is part of this story.

A Deadly Legacy

A Deadly Legacy PDF Author: Tim Grady
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300231237
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2018 This book is the first to offer a full account of the varied contributions of German Jews to Imperial Germany’s endeavors during the Great War. Historian Tim Grady examines the efforts of the 100,000 Jewish soldiers who served in the German military (12,000 of whom died), as well as the various activities Jewish communities supported at home, such as raising funds for the war effort and securing vital food supplies. However, Grady’s research goes much deeper: he shows that German Jews were never at the periphery of Germany’s warfare, but were in fact heavily involved. The author finds that many German Jews were committed to the same brutal and destructive war that other Germans endorsed, and he discusses how the conflict was in many ways lived by both groups alike. What none could have foreseen was the dangerous legacy they created together, a legacy that enabled Hitler’s rise to power and planted the seeds of the Holocaust to come.

War Experiences in Rural Germany

War Experiences in Rural Germany PDF Author: Benjamin Ziemann
Publisher: Berg
ISBN: 0857850954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
World War I was a uniquely devastating total war that surpassed all previous conflicts for its destruction. But what was the reality like on the ground, for both the soldiers on the front-lines and the women on the homefront?Drawing on intimate firsthand accounts in diaries and letters, War Experiences in Rural Germany examines this question in detail and challenges some strongly held assumptions about the Great War. The author makes the controversial case for the blurring of 'front' and 'homefront'. He shows that through the constant exchange of letters and frequent furloughs, rural soldiers maintained a high degree of contact with their home lives. In addition, the author provides a more nuanced interpretation of the alleged brutalizing effect of the war experience, suggesting that it was by far not as complete as has been previously understood. This pathbreaking book paints a vivid picture of the dynamics of total war on rural communities, from the calling up of troops to the reintegration of veterans into society.

The Historiography of World War I from 1918 to the Present

The Historiography of World War I from 1918 to the Present PDF Author: Christoph Cornelissen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800737270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
From the Treaty of Versailles to the 2018 centenary and beyond, the history of the First World War has been continually written and rewritten, studied and contested, producing a rich historiography shaped by the social and cultural circumstances of its creation. Writing the Great War provides a groundbreaking survey of this vast body of work, assembling contributions on a variety of national and regional historiographies from some of the most prominent scholars in the field. By analyzing perceptions of the war in contexts ranging from Nazi Germany to India’s struggle for independence, this is an illuminating collective study of the complex interplay of memory and history.

Germany and the Causes of the First World War

Germany and the Causes of the First World War PDF Author: Mark Hewitson
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472578104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
How can we understand what caused World War I? What role did Germany play? This book encourages us to re-think the events that led to global conflict in 1914.Historians in recent years have argued that German leaders acted defensively or pre-emptively in 1914, conscious of the Reich's deteriorating military and diplomatic position. Germany and the Causes of the First World War challenges such interpretations, placing new emphasis on the idea that the Reich Chancellor, the German Foreign Office and the Great General Staff were confident that they could win a continental war. This belief in Germany's superiority derived primarily from an assumption of French decline and Russian weakness throughout the period between the turn of the century and the eve of the First World War. Accordingly, Wilhelmine policy-makers pursued offensive policies - at the risk of war at important junctures during the 1900s and 1910s. The author analyses the stereotyping of enemy states, representations of war in peacetime, and conceptualizations of international relations. He uncovers the complex role of ruling elites, political parties, big business and the press, and contends that the decade before the First World War witnessed some critical changes in German foreign policy. By the time of the July crisis of 1914, for example, the perception of enemies had altered, with Russia - the traditional bugbear of the German centre and left - becoming the principal opponent of the Reich. Under these changed conditions, German leaders could now pursue their strategy of brinkmanship, using war as an instrument of policy, to its logical conclusion.

A History of the Great War

A History of the Great War PDF Author: Eric Dorn Brose
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
PART ONE: INTO THE ABYSS 1871-1914 1. The Long Descent 2. From Peace to War PART TWO: THE ABYSS 1914-1918 3. The Opening Campaigns 1914 4. The Wider War 1914-1915 5. The Stalemate in Europe 1915 6. The Wider War 1915-1916 7. Tipping Points in Europe 1916-1917 8. War-Weariness and the Question of Peace in Europe 1917 9. War, Politics, and Diplomacy in the Middle East and Russia 1917-1918 10. The Last Furious Year of the Great War 1917-1918 PART THREE: SLOWLY OUT OF THE ABYSS 1918-1926 11. The Violent Aftermath of the Great War in Europe 1918-1926 12. The Problematic Legacy of the Great War in the Wider World 1918-1926 13. Epilogue: Bereavement, Economic Collapse, and the Climate for War.

POWs and the Great War

POWs and the Great War PDF Author: Alon Rachamimov
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472578147
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
Joint Winner of Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History 2001, London. Winner of Talmon Prize, Israel, awarded by the Israeli Academy of Sciences. Although it was one of the most common experiences of combatants in World War I, captivity has received only a marginal place in the collective memory of the Great War and has seemed unimportant compared with the experiences of soldiers on the Western Front. Yet this book, focusing on POWs on the Eastern Front, reveals a different picture of the War and the human misery it produced. During four years of fighting, approximately 8.5 million soldiers were taken captive, of whom nearly 2.8 million were Austro-Hungarians. This book is the first to consider in-depth the experiences of these prisoners during their period of incarceration. How were POWs treated in Russia? What was the relationship between prisoners and their home state? How were concepts of patriotism and loyalty employed and understood? Drawing extensively on original letters and diaries, Rachamimov answers these and other searching questions. In the process, major omissions in previous historiography are addressed. Anyone wishing to have a rounded history of the Great War will find this book fills a major gap.

The Long Shadow

The Long Shadow PDF Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0857206389
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
In Britain we have lost touch with the Great War. Our overriding sense now is of a meaningless, futile bloodbath in the mud of Flanders -- of young men whose lives were cut off in their prime for no evident purpose. But by reducing the conflict to personal tragedies, however moving, we have lost the big picture: the history has been distilled into poetry. In TheLong Shadow, critically acclaimed author David Reynolds seeks to redress the balance by exploring the true impact of 1914-18 on the 20th century. Some of the Great War's legacies were negative and pernicious but others proved transformative in a positive sense. Exploring big themes such as democracy and empire, nationalism and capitalism and re-examining the differing impacts of the War on Britain, Ireland and the United States,TheLong Shadowthrows light on the whole of the last century and demonstrates that 1914-18 is a conflict that Britain, more than any other nation, is still struggling to comprehend. Stunningly broad in its historical perspective, The Long Shadowis a magisterial and seismic re-presentation of the Great War.

The Hidden Legacy of World War II

The Hidden Legacy of World War II PDF Author: Carol Schultz Vento
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Carol Schultz Vento recounts the post-World War II years of her famous father "Dutch" Schultz. Daughters, fathers and war - three words seldom used together. In "The Hidden Legacy of World War II: A Daughter's Journey", Carol Schultz Vento weaves life with her paratrooper father into the larger narrative of World War II and the homecoming of the Greatest Generation. The book describes the seldom told story of how the war trauma of World War II impacted one family. This personal story is combined with the author's thorough research and investigation of the reality for those World War II veterans who could not forget the horrors of war. This nonfiction work fills in the missing pieces of the commonly accepted societal view of World War II veterans as stoic and unwavering, a true but incomplete portrait of that generation of warrior. About the author: Carol Schultz Vento is a former Political Science professor and attorney. She is a graduate of Temple University and Rutgers University School of Law. She is the daughter of 82nd Airborne World War II veteran Arthur "Dutch" Schultz. Carol is a native of Philadelphia and lives in Palmyra, New Jersey.

Revival After the Great War

Revival After the Great War PDF Author: Luc Verpoest
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9462702500
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
The challenges of post-war recovery from social and political reform to architectural design In the months and years immediately following the First World War, the many (European) countries that had formed its battleground were confronted with daunting challenges. These challenges varied according to the countries' earlier role and degree of involvement in the war but were without exception enormous. The contributors to this book analyse how this was not only a matter of rebuilding ravaged cities and destroyed infrastructure, but also of repairing people’s damaged bodies and upended daily lives, and rethinking and reforming societal, economic and political structures. These processes took place against the backdrop of mass mourning and remembrance, political violence and economic crisis. At the same time, the post-war tabula rasa offered many opportunities for innovation in various areas of society, from social and political reform to architectural design. The wide scope of post-war recovery and revival is reflected in the different sections of this book: rebuild, remember, repair, and reform. It offers insights into post-war revival in Western European countries such as Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Italy, as well as into how their efforts were perceived outside of Europe, for instance in Argentina and the United States.