Writing The Great War

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.

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.

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.

This vivid, detailed history of World War I presents the general reader with an accurate and readable account of the campaigns and battles, along with brilliant portraits of the leaders and generals of all countries involved. Scrupulously fair, praising and blaming friend and enemy as circumstances demand, this has become established as the classic account of the first world-wide war.

From the creative team behind the bestselling Finding Winnie, winner of the Caldecott Medal, comes an extraordinary wartime adventure seen through the eyes of the world’s most beloved bear Here is a heartwarming reimagining of the real journey undertaken by the extraordinary bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh. Follow Winnie’s war adventure—from her early days with her mother in the Canadian forest, to her remarkable travels with the Veterinary Corps across the country and overseas, and all the way to the London Zoo, where she met Christopher Robin Milne and inspired the creation of the world’s most famous bear. This beautifully told story is a triumphant blending of deep research and magnificent imagination. Infused with Sophie Blackall’s irresistible renderings of an endearing bear, the book is also woven through with entries from Captain Harry Colebourn’s real wartime diaries and contains a selection of artifacts from the Colebourn family archives. The result is a one-of-a-kind exploration into the realities of war, the meaning of courage and the indelible power of friendship, all told through the historic adventures of one extraordinary bear.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The First World War was the first ‘total war’. Its industrial weaponry damaged millions of men and drove whole armies underground into dangerously unhealthy trenches. Many were killed. Many more suffered terrible, life-threatening injuries: wound infections such as gas gangrene and tetanus, exposure to extremes of temperature, emotional trauma and systemic disease. In an effort to alleviate this suffering, tens of thousands of women volunteered to serve as nurses. Of these, some were experienced professionals, while others had undergone only minimal training. But regardless of their preparation, they would all gain a unique understanding of the conditions of industrial warfare. Until recently their contributions, both to the saving of lives and to our understanding of warfare, have remained largely hidden from view. By combining biographical research with textual analysis, Nurse writers of the great war opens a window onto their insights into the nature of nursing and the impact of warfare.

This book analyzes the world of 1914 by combining the approaches of traditionalist hermeneutics and 20th century geopolitics. The juxtaposition of these two frameworks, incorporated in the principles of Sacred Geography and Sea Power, allows for a Traditionalist perspective on the choices facing the Ten Great Powers on the eve of the Great War. The book’s multifaceted approach follows the iconoclastic “culture critique” method of the Traditional School that was developed by René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon and Julius Evola; it shows the pre-war world as essentially different from the post-war world. Thus, the Ten Great Power protagonists of the Great War may be understood on their own terms, rather than through a backward projection of politically-correct values on the existentially different human life-world of 1914. Dislodging the historical-materialist “progress” premise that underpins contemporary academic historiography, this book reasserts the highest claim of the Art of History: meta-narrative meaning.