The History Book Club discussion

This thread is here to discuss the aftermath of World War I:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermat...

by John Keegan

I picked up a copy of this book today which provides first-hand accounts of the aftermath of the Great War; "We Will Remember Them: Voices From the Aftermath of the Great War" by Max Arthur.

by Max Arthur
Reviews:
"It's a winning formula, and his books have enjoyed much success... there is also much that is arresting." - Literary Review

"...poignant... Today's youngsters should read this so they never forget the sacrifices of their forefathers." - News of the World

"... a seamless patchwork of memories and recollections which, perhaps for the first time, tell us exactly how it was for the men returning to 'a land fit for heroes'... essential reading... A simply superb work." - The Great War

Thanks Aussie Rick for the add.

I would recommend:
by Juliet Nicolson.

I was very moved by this book. It examines the ways that the British population across all levels of society, dealt with the unimaginable grief resultant from the loss of a generation of young men in the muddy trenches. The author also paints a heartbreaking picture of the survivors....men who would never be the same, broken in body and spirit. Poignant is not strong enough to describe this book.

I've seen that book around but have never picked it up, I will have to check it next time, thnaks for the post Jill.

This comparative history of cultural and human destruction provides insight into the devastating consequences of the Great War. The author shows how the cultural mobilization and mass killing of this period were decisive in the development of the communist and fascist regimes in the years to come and how the First World War had made the unthinkable thinkable.

by Alan Kramer

I found this book browsing through the store and have added it to my TBR list.

Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War

byAlan Kramer(no photo)

Synopsis
On 26 August 1914 the world-famous university library in the Belgian town of Louvain was looted and destroyed by German troops. The international community reacted in horror and the behavior of the Germans at Louvain came to be seen as the beginning of a different style of war, without the rules that had governed military conflict up to that point--a more total war, in which enemy civilians and their entire culture were now legitimate targets.
As award-winning historian Alan Kramer shows in this gripping and insightful volume, the destruction at Louvain was simply one symbolic moment in a vast wave of cultural destruction and mass killing that swept across the map of Europe at the time of the First World War. Using a wide range of examples and striking eye-witness accounts from England, France, Germany, and elsewhere, Kramer brings home the reality of the Great War, painting a picture of an entire continent plunging into a chilling new world of mass mobilization, total warfare, and the celebration of nationalist or ethnic violence--often directed expressly at the enemy's civilian population. Kramer examines the psychological impact of trench warfare, addresses the question of German atrocities (were the Germans particularly barbaric, or was savage behavior common on all sides?), and offers a disturbing summation of the war's impact on European culture.
From the Western Front to the Balkans, from Italy to the war in the East, the First World War was the most apocalyptic the world had ever known. This book tells you how and why the civilized nations of Europe descended into unprecedented orgy of destruction.

I think I mentioned that book in the post preceding yours, Nicole..............but it is worth repeating!!!

You did! Have your read it?

Yes, but it has been a couple of years ago. It is rather chilling and the author does a good job of trying to explain why people do what they do in war time.

I really do want to learn in detail the long-lasting effects of WWI. I do believe that this war changed the world long term even more than WWII. I'm already planning to read by David Fromkin. Would anyone have any other books that talk about the long-lasting aftereffects of WWI?

Ken, thanks for the post. "A Peace to End All Peace" looks like a great book. I'm sure other members will have a suggestion or two.

David Fromkin

I read this last month. It was quite fascinating and I'd definitely recommend it:

The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism

by Anthony Read

Synopsis

While the Western leaders were hammering out a peace treaty in Paris to end the Great War, a new war had already begun. Bolshevism—the creed of the Russian Revolution—had burst on the scene in 1917 and seared itself into the world’s consciousness even faster than al-Qaeda would some eighty years later. The Allied powers tried to destroy it at its source by intervening, controversially and unsuccessfully, in the civil war in Russia. Elsewhere there were bloody revolutions and bloodier counterrevolutions in Germany, Hungary, and the Baltic States; massive strikes and civil unrest broke out in Britain, Western Europe, and in both North and South America. In the United States, a series of terrorist bombings created a wave of hysteria, later labeled the Great Red Scare, that threatened the very foundations of a free and democratic society. This book chronicles and examines the running battle with terror during the most revolutionary year since 1789.

Great, Jerome, many thanks.

The end of a war can just be as horrific for many civilians.

Germany's attempt to re-organize the government after the Great War.....there was more tragedy than promise.


Weimer Germany: Promise and Tragedy

by Eric D. Weitz

Synopsis
Weimar Germany still fascinates us, and now this complex and remarkably creative period and place has the history it deserves. Eric Weitz's "Weimar Germany" reveals the Weimar era as a time of strikingly progressive achievements--and even greater promise. With a rich thematic narrative and detailed portraits of some of Weimar's greatest figures, this comprehensive history recaptures the excitement and drama as it unfolded, viewing Weimar in its own right--and not as a mere prelude to the Nazi era.

"Weimar Germany" tells how Germans rose from the defeat of World War I and the turbulence of revolution to forge democratic institutions and make Berlin a world capital of avant-garde art. Setting the stage for this story, Weitz takes the reader on a walking tour of Berlin to see and feel what life was like there in the 1920s, when modernity and the modern city--with its bright lights, cinemas, "new women," cabarets, and sleek department stores--were new. We learn how Germans enjoyed better working conditions and new social benefits and listened to the utopian prophets of everything from radical socialism to communal housing to nudism. "Weimar Germany" also explores the period's revolutionary cultural creativity, from the new architecture of Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut, and Walter Gropius to Hannah H ch's photomontages and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's theater. Other chapters assess the period's turbulent politics and economy, and the recipes for fulfilling sex lives propounded by new "sexologists." Yet "Weimar Germany" also shows how entrenched elites continually challenged Weimar's achievements and ultimately joined with a new radical Right led by the Nazis to form a coalition that destroyed the republic.

Hi there, I'm looking for books detailing the economic situation of post WWI Germany and the dynamics that brought Germany to a place where it could build a massive military machine. Given the abject crisis Germany found itself into after the bellic effort, the rampant inflation, the economy in tatters having to repay the war costs, where did the money come from? I've read (see for instance http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/...) that foreign investors were interested in making a buck out of the rebuilding of Germany, or that big industries, like Krupp were promised a privileged position if they were to finance the reconstruction. Is there a nice study of this or something that the knowledgeable folks at Goodreads could recommend?

Thanks,
Alberto Giannetto

Alberto, I don't know of one book that covers this well, but others might help. Here might be some suggestions:

Theo Balderston

(no image)Design for Total War: Arms and Economics in the Third Reich by Berenice Anita Carroll

I have not read this book, Alberto, but it has the reputation of being one of the best studies of the Weimar Republic.


The Weimar Republic

by Detlev J.K. Peukert

Synopsis
The nature of Weimar's terminal crisis - how a politically liberal and culturally progressive society could succomb to fascism - remains one of the central historical questions of our century. In this major work, Detlev J.K. Peukert offers a stimulating interpretation that not only places Weimar in the history of twentieth-century Germany but also reveals it as an archetype of the ambivalences and pathologies of advanced industrial society.

Recently there were much publicized Honor Flights to assist WWII veterans to Washington D.C. to view the memorials. In a different light here is a book about WWI pilgrimages.

The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s: Overseas Grave Visitations By Mothers And Widows of Fallen U.S. World War I Soldiers

John W. Graham

Synopsis
During the first World War, a flag with a gold star identified families who had lost soldiers. Grieving women were “Gold Star” mothers and widows. Between 1930 and 1933, the United States government took 6,654 Gold Star pilgrims to visit their sons’ and husbands’ graves in American cemeteries in Belgium, England, and France. Veteran Army officers acted as tour guides, helping women come to terms with their losses as they sought solace and closure. The government meticulously planned and paid for everything from transportation and lodging to menus, tips, sightseeing, and interpreters. Flowered wreaths, flags, and camp chairs were provided at the cemeteries, and official photographers captured each woman standing at her loved one’s grave. This work covers the Gold Star pilgrimages from their launch to the present day, beginning with an introduction to the war and wartime burial. Subsequent topics include the legislative struggle and evolution of the pilgrimage bill; personal pilgrimages, including that of the parents of poet Joyce Kilmer; the role of the Quartermaster Corps; the segregation controversy; a close examination of the first group to travel, Party A of May 1930; and the results of the pilgrimage experience as described by participants, observers, organizers, and scholars, researched through diaries, letters, scrapbooks, interviews, and newspaper accounts.

Mark.......that sounds like a wonderful book. It will be going on my tbr list. Thanks for the tip.

I strongly recommend Paradise Lost by Giles Milton which gives a very readable account of the Greek-Turkish War of 1920-22 and of the fall of Smyrna (now Izmir). It was a ghastly tragedy, brought on in no small measure by the irresponsibility of Lloyd George (one time pacifist!) and the Greek prime Minister.
Giles MiltonParadise Lost: Smyrna, 1922

Thanks, Antione. I don't know much about this conflict.

Don't forget to add book cover, author photo, and author link. Give it try by editing your message and putting it in. Thanks.

by Giles Milton

One more in a plethora of books that attempt to show how Hitler came to power as a result of the Great War and the Weimar Republic. This particular one is very well researched and is written without bias.


From Weimar to Hitler: Germany 1918-1933

by Edgar Feuchtwanger (no photo)

Synopsis

Weimar has become synonymous with catastrophic political failure, the prelude to the greatest moral and material disasters of the twentieth century. This book shows that such failure was never inevitable and that options remained tantalizingly open right up to Hitler's assumption of power. The democratic regime was saddled with heavy burdens stemming from defeat and never enjoyed general acceptance and legitimacy. On the other hand, it encouraged for the first time in German history expectations of a high level of welfare, individual rights and modern social practices, which were at least partially fulfilled. The period of relative prosperity was, however, too short, the return of crisis too severe and the resulting demoralisation too profound to save democracy. The author draws a compelling picture of a society frequently in turmoil, yet remarkably creative and innovative, but finally overwhelmed by a tide of irrationality and barbarism. He makes full use of the extensive sources and secondary literature available in German.

Many historians agree that the Versailles Treaty led to the coming of Nazism and WWII. This author agrees and tells the reader why.

The Versailles Treaty and Its Legacy

by Norman A. Graebner (no photo)

Synopsis:

This study, a realist interpretation of the long diplomatic record that produced the coming of World War II in 1939, is a critique of the Paris Peace Conference and reflects the judgment shared by many who left the Conference in 1919 in disgust amid predictions of future war. The critique is a rejection of the idea of collective security, which Woodrow Wilson and many others believed was a panacea, but which was also condemned as early as 1915. This book delivers a powerful lesson in treaty-making and rejects the supposition that treaties, once made, are unchangeable, whatever their faults.

In a Strange Land: The American Occupation of Germany 1918-1923

by Alexander Barnes (no photo)

Synopsis:

America s involvement in WWI marked its first major entry into European politics. The final cost of that involvement required the U.S. to supply a force to occupy part of the German Rhineland after the war. The force provided was first known as Third Army and then later as the American Forces in Germany (AFG). It consisted of the best divisions in the American Army. With a starting strength of a quarter million doughboys, the Americans marched to the Rhine and began their occupation period in December 1918. When the American phase of the occupation ended in 1923, the force consisted of one thousand soldiers. Many future WWII leaders of the Army and Marine Corps served in this force; including five who would become Marine Commandant, four Army Chiefs of Staff, ten four-star Generals, and, surprisingly, a National Football League Head coach.

The Unfinished Peace After World War I: America, Britain and the Stabilisation of Europe, 1919-1932

by Patrick O. Cohrs 9no photo)

Synopsis:

This is a highly original and revisionist analysis of British and American efforts to forge a stable Euro-Atlantic peace order between 1919 and the rise of Hitler. Patrick Cohrs argues that this order was not founded at Versailles but rather through the first 'real' peace settlements after World War I - the London reparations settlement of 1924 and the Locarno security pact of 1925. Crucially, both fostered Germany's integration into a fledgling transatlantic peace system, thus laying the only realistic foundations for European stability. What proved decisive was that key decision-makers drew lessons from the 'Great War' and Versailles' shortcomings. Yet Cohrs also re-appraises why they could not sustain the new order, master its gravest crisis - the Great Depression - and prevent Nazism's onslaught. Despite this ultimate failure, he concludes that the 'unfinished peace' of the 1920s prefigured the terms on which a more durable peace could be founded after 1945.

Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918

by Joseph E. Persico

Synopsis:

November 11, 1918. The final hours pulsate with tension as every man in the trenches hopes to escape the melancholy distinction of being the last to die in World War I. The Allied generals knew the fighting would end precisely at 11:00 A.M, yet in the final hours they flung men against an already beaten Germany. The result? Eleven thousand casualties suffered–more than during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Why? Allied commanders wanted to punish the enemy to the very last moment and career officers saw a fast-fading chance for glory and promotion.

Joseph E. Persico puts the reader in the trenches with the forgotten and the famous–among the latter, Corporal Adolf Hitler, Captain Harry Truman, and Colonels Douglas MacArthur and George Patton. Mainly, he follows ordinary soldiers’ lives, illuminating their fate as the end approaches. Persico sets the last day of the war in historic context with a gripping reprise of all that led up to it, from the 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand, which ignited the war, to the raw racism black doughboys endured except when ordered to advance and die in the war’s last hour. Persico recounts the war’s bloody climax in a cinematic style that evokes All Quiet on the Western Front, Grand Illusion, and Paths of Glory.

The pointless fighting on the last day of the war is the perfect metaphor for the four years that preceded it, years of senseless slaughter for hollow purposes. This book is sure to become the definitive history of the end of a conflict Winston Churchill called “the hardest, cruelest, and least-rewarded of all the wars that have been fought.”

An upcoming book:
Release date: November 7, 2013

Hundred Days: The End of the Great War

by Nick Lloyd (no photo)

Synopsis:

Nick Lloyd's Hundred Days: The End of the Great War explores the brutal, heroic and extraordinary final days of the First World War. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent. The Armistice, which brought the Great War to an end, marked a seminal moment in modern European and World history. Yet the story of how the war ended remains little-known. In this compelling and ground-breaking new study, Nick Lloyd examines the last days of the war and asks the question: How did it end? Beginning at the heralded turning-point on the Marne in July 1918, Hundred Days traces the epic story of the next four months, which included some of the bloodiest battles of the war. Using unpublished archive material from five countries, this new account reveals how the Allies - British, French, American and Commonwealth - managed to beat the German Army, by now crippled by indiscipline and ravaged by influenza, and force her leaders to seek peace.

Thanks Jerome for all of the adds.

History of Wilson's dream of a League of Nations; but he couldn't get it passed by the American Congress.

Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations

by John Milton Cooper Jr. (no photo)

Synopsis

The fight over the League of Nations at the end of World War I was one of the great political debates of the American twentieth century. President Woodrow Wilson, himself a key architect of the League, was uncompromising in his belief that the United States would rise to a position of leadership in the peaceful union of states that he had envisaged. A masterful politician and distinguished theorist, Wilson was unprepared for the persuasiveness of his opponents and the potency of their argument. Though he struggled tirelessly in the summer of 1919 to drum popular and political support for the League, he could not keep pace: he suffered a disabling stroke in July. The United States Senate ultimately rejected membership in the League, and the League failed to realize its diplomatic potential. In this engaging narrative, John Cooper relates the story of Wilson's battle for the League with sympathy, accuracy, and a deep understanding of the times.

Another recent release:

100 Days to Victory: How the Great War Was Fought and Won

by Saul David

Synopsis:

Saul David's 100 Days to Victory is a totally original, utterly engaging account of the Great War - the first book to tell the story of the 'war to end all wars' through the events of one hundred key days between 1914 and 1918.

The history of any war is more than a list of key battles and Saul David shows vividly how the First World War reached beyond the battlefield, touching upon events and lives which shaped the conduct and outcome of the conflict. Ranging from the young Adolf Hitler's reaction to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, through a Zeppelin raid on Scarborough, the tragic dramas of Gallipoli and the battlefields of the Western Front to the individual bravery of the first Indian VC, Saul David brings people and events dramatically to life.

100 Days to Victory is a 360 degree portrait of a global conflict that stretched east from the shores of Britain to the marshes of Iraq, and south from the forests of Russia to the bush of German South East Africa. Throughout his gripping narrative we hear the voices of men and women both eminent and ordinary, some who were spectators on the Home Front, others - including Saul David's own family - who were deeply embroiled in epic battles that changed the world forever.

100 Days to Victory is the work of a great historian and supreme story teller. Most importantly, it is also an enthralling tribute to a generation whose sacrifice should never be forgotten.

Margaret Macmillan's PARIS 1919 is an award winning account of the 6 months after the Armistice. Very readable and utterly fascinating!

From the cover:
Between January and July 1919, after “the war to end all wars,” men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. Center stage, for the first time in history, was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and wildly idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully, Wilson is only one of the larger-than-life characters who fill the pages of this extraordinary book. David Lloyd George, the gregarious and wily British prime minister, brought Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes. Lawrence of Arabia joined the Arab delegation. Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen assistant at the Ritz, submitted a petition for an independent Vietnam.
For six months, Paris was effectively the center of the world as the peacemakers carved up bankrupt empires and created new countries. This book brings to life the personalities, ideals, and prejudices of the men who shaped the settlement. They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China, and dismissed the Arabs. They struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews.
The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally; above all they failed to prevent another war. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made the scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. She refutes received ideas about the path from Versailles to World War II and debunks the widely accepted notion that reparations imposed on the Germans were in large part responsible for the Second World War.
A landmark work of narrative history, Paris 1919 is the first full-scale treatment of the Peace Conference in more than twenty-five years. It offers a scintillating view of those dramatic and fateful days when much of the modern world was sketched out, when countries were created—Iraq, Yugoslavia, Israel—whose troubles haunt us still.

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

Andrew wrote: "Margaret Macmillan's PARIS 1919 is an award winning account of the 6 months after the Armistice. Very readable and utterly fascinating!..."

I really liked this book, as well. It read like a drama and very interesting. I think Macmillan talks about Wilson having the flu and being sick, he was not 100% as he should be.

Good try on the citation. If there is a book cover, go ahead and use that and put in a link for the author:

by Margaret MacMillan (no photo)

That is one of my favorite books about the Versailles Treaty, which was truly a fiasco (in MHO). It almost reads like fiction, doesn't it? Wonderful book.

Jill wrote: "That is one of my favorite books about the Versailles Treaty, which was truly a fiasco (in MHO). It almost reads like fiction, doesn't it? Wonderful book."

I agree both on this book, and on the "fiasco" aspect of the Versailles treaty. Realizing of course that hindsight is 20/20, you still can't help but wonder what they were thinking sometimes. And of course we're still paying the price today for some of the decisions that were made then.

One element of the treaty period that I was only vaguely familiar with was the Turkish/Greek situation - just one example of forcing an issue at the conference through a fait accompli in the field.

By the way, my first introduction to the Turk/Greek conflicts of the early 20th century was through a fiction novel whose characters found their way to America as a result of the conflict - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. It's a well-written book that gives us some insight into a number of historical moments like the one already mentioned and the Detroit riots of the 1960s.

by Jeffrey Eugenides

Dave wrote: "Jill wrote: "That is one of my favorite books about the Versailles Treaty, which was truly a fiasco (in MHO). It almost reads like fiction, doesn't it? Wonderful book."

I agree both on this book, ..."

Don't get me started on the Versailles treaty!!!!! All I will say is that everyone had their own agenda.....France wanted revenge for the generation of young men that they lost and the destruction of much of their country; England wanted to ensure the continuation of the Empire: and Italy wanted the city of Fiume. And Woodrow Wilson (but not necessarily the USA as was shown later) wanted the League of Nations.

Below are the famous (or infamous) Fourteen Points that Woodrow Wilson brought to the Versailles Treaty. These are worth reading in order to get an idea of why the Versailles Treaty was basically unworkable. Of course, there was much more to the treaty, such as the ridiculous reparations clause which bankrupted Germany and which probably led to WWII.


1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
3. The removal, of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
10. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
11. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
12. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

Thank you Jill

The contents of this book may be somewhat surprising as it reveals how WWI shaped our modern world.

The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century

by David Reynolds

Synopsis:

One of the most violent conflicts in the history of civilization, World War I has been strangely forgotten in American culture. It has become a ghostly war fought in a haze of memory, often seen merely as a distant preamble to World War II. In The Long Shadow critically acclaimed historian David Reynolds seeks to broaden our vision by assessing the impact of the Great War across the twentieth century. He shows how events in that turbulent century—particularly World War II, the Cold War, and the collapse of Communism—shaped and reshaped attitudes to 1914–18.

By exploring big themes such as democracy and empire, nationalism and capitalism, as well as art and poetry, The Long Shadow is stunningly broad in its historical perspective. Reynolds throws light on the vast expanse of the last century and explains why 1914–18 is a conflict that America is still struggling to comprehend. Forging connections between people, places, and ideas, The Long Shadow ventures across the traditional subcultures of historical scholarship to offer a rich and layered examination not only of politics, diplomacy, and security but also of economics, art, and literature. The result is a magisterial reinterpretation of the place of the Great War in modern history.

Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning

by Jay Winter(no photo)

Synopsis:

Jay Winter's powerful 1998 study of the 'collective remembrance' of the Great War offers a major reassessment of one of the critical episodes in the cultural history of the twentieth century. Dr Winter looks anew at the culture of commemoration and the ways in which communities endeavoured to find collective solace after 1918. Taking issue with the prevailing 'modernist' interpretation of the European reaction to the appalling events of 191418, Dr Winter instead argues that what characterised that reaction was, rather, the attempt to interpret the Great War within traditional frames of reference. Tensions arose inevitably. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning is a profound and moving book of seminal importance for the attempt to understand the course of European history during the first half of the twentieth century.

An upcoming book:
Release date: November 15, 2016

The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End

by Robert Gerwarth (no photo)

Synopsis:

For the Western allies, November 11, 1918 has always been a solemn date--the end of fighting that had destroyed a generation, but also a vindication of a terrible sacrifice with the total collapse of the principal enemies: the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. But for much of the rest of Europe this was a day with no meaning, as a continuing, nightmarish series of conflicts engulfed country after country.

In The Vanquished, a highly original and gripping work of history, Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not the fighting on the Western Front that proved so ruinous to Europe's future, but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were savaged by revolutions, pogroms, mass expulsions, and further major military clashes. If the war itself had in most places been a struggle mainly between state-backed soldiers, these new conflicts were predominantly perpetrated by civilians and paramilitaries, and driven by a murderous sense of injustice projected on to enemies real and imaginary. In the years immediately after the armistice, millions would die across Central, eastern, and southeastern Europe before the Soviet Union and a series of rickety and exhausted small new states would come into being. It was here, in the ruins of Europe, that extreme ideologies such as fascism would take shape and ultimately emerge triumphant in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere.

As absorbing in its drama as it is unsettling in its analysis, The Vanquished is destined to transform our understanding of not just the First World War but of the twentieth century as a whole.

by Hugh Cecil (no photo)

A book on the brink of the timeline, reconstructing the mentalities of various warring nations as the guns fell silent. Some chapters will read like comfort food, such as the cults of rememberance that sprung up in Britain and France. Others are more unusual fare, such as the nationalistic ambitions of Romania.
The vanquished equally get space to ponder their coping strategies. Each chapter has its own knowledgeable contributor, much like the excellent naval compendium edited by Vincent O' Hara*. Hugh Cecil has supervised an equivalent for 'soft' social history that is able to stand by itself but will equally widen your insights in related books such as "Empires of the Dead"**.

* by Vincent P. O'Hara (no photo)
** by David Crane (no photo)

Thanks all, Betsy, Dimitri, Jerome, Jill.

Betsy when mentioning the author - still cite. In this case, their was not author's photo but still a link.

David Crane

Here is a strange little book by one of Britain's favorite authors, written in 1916.

What Is Coming? A Forecast of Things After the War

by H.G. Wells

Synopsis:

Prophecy may vary between being an intellectual amusement and a serious occupation; serious not only in its intentions, but in its consequences. For it is the lot of prophets who frighten or disappoint to be stoned. But for some of us moderns, who have been touched with the spirit of science, prophesying is almost a habit of mind.

The recent news of the Palestinian Authority's plan to sue the United Kingdom over the Belfour Declaration unless the U.K. formally apologize. This gets, to my mind one of the key arguments to why WWI has had much more of a lasting effect on the present day than WWII. I don't think it will succeed, but it will raise awareness with people who do not know about things like "Belfour" and Sykes-Picot.

Thank you Ken, I must say that I can't imagine that the Palestinian lawsuit will be successful but it may be dependent on who joins with Palestine in this endeavor. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (not to be confused with the Balfour Declaration of 1926 which has no relation to the Middle East). it is as follows:

The Balfour Declaration was a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. It read:

" His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

The text of the letter was published in the press one week later, on 9 November 1917. The "Balfour Declaration" was later incorporated into both the Sèvres peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire, and the Mandate for Palestine. The original document is kept at the British Library.

The issuance of the Declaration had many long lasting consequences, and was a key moment in the lead-up to the Arab–Israeli conflict, often referred to as the world's "most intractable conflict".

Guns at the Abyss

A young Social Democrat activist attempts to prevent the outbreak of World War I. Guns at the Abyss is a historically accurate recreation of secret meetings among the plotters of The Great War (1914-1918). Written in the style of a novel, the book accurately describes real street names, buildings and monuments, manner of dress and social custom, presenting as if a snapshot, a portrait of Berlin in 1914.

Sounds like an interesting book, John. Thanks for the recommendation. BTW, don't forget the book citation as shown below.

by John Sammon (no photo)

Jerome wrote:
" byRobert Gerwarth(no photo)"

"Meh." I leafed through this at the shop & it was my only reaction as I put it back. Hopes up for nothing...good intro if you're new to the subject, no doubt.
It's like a series of chapters whose length is determined by how well-known the interwar situation is to the general public: big ones for the Weimar Freikorps and the Russian Civil War, a medium one for the foundation of modern Turkey... The Fiume episode in Italy got 4 pages or so.
It's not complete: where's all the minor violence & ethnic ping-pong linked to the nation-building after the Hapsburgs collapse ? Where's Greater Romania ?

Hello Liz (Dain) - I have moved your post to the welcome thread and have asked Vicki to welcome you formerly and help you out. We have a lot of threads here which will be helpful to you once you know your way around. I am afraid that your post will get lost here on this thread because it refers to not only WWI, but to the American Civil War, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny as well as WWII.

I have moved your post to this thread:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I have asked Vicki (one of our moderators to help you). Welcome to the History Book Club.

Regards,

Bentley