Gale U.S. History in Context
Magazine and journal articles, reference works and primary documents on the World War I.
Selected Resources
The World War I Reader by
Almost 100 years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, World War I continues to be badly understood and greatly oversimplified. Its enormous impact on the world in terms of international diplomacy and politics, and the ways in which future military engagements would evolve, be fought, and ultimately get resolved have been ignored. With this reader of primary and secondary documents, edited and compiled by Michael S. Neiberg, students, scholars, and war buffs can gain an extensive yet accessible understanding of this conflict. Neiberg introduces the basic problems in the history of World War I, shares the words and experiences of the participants themselves, and, finally, presents some of the most innovative and dynamic current scholarship on the war. Neiberg, a leading historian of World War I, has selected a wide array of primary documents, ranging from government papers to personal diaries, demonstrating the war's devastating effect on all who experienced it, whether President Woodrow Wilson, an English doughboy in the trenches, or a housewife in Germany. In addition to this material, each chapter in The World War I Reader contains a selection of articles and book chapters written by major scholars of World War I, giving readers perspectives on the war that are both historical and contemporary. Chapters are arranged chronologically and by theme, and address causes, the experiences of soldiers and their leaders, battlefield strategies and conditions, home front issues, diplomacy, and peacemaking. A time-line, maps, suggestions for further reading, and a substantive introduction by Neiberg that lays out the historiography of World War I round out the book.
Call Number: D509.W85 2007ISBN: 0814758339Publication Date: 2006-12-01
July 1914 by
When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, the world seemed unmoved. Even Ferdinand’s own uncle, Franz Josef I, was notably ambivalent about the death of the Hapsburg heir, saying simply, "It is God’s will.” Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that the episode would lead to conflict--much less a world war of such massive and horrific proportions that it would fundamentally reshape the course of human events. As acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals in July 1914, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use Ferdinand’s murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame. While most accounts of the war’s outbreak place the bulk of responsibility on German and Austro-Hungarian militarism, McMeekin draws on surprising new evidence from archives across Europe to show that the worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable. Whether they plotted for war or rode the whirlwind nearly blind, each of the men involved--from Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold von Berchtold and German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov and French president Raymond Poincaré--sought to capitalize on the fallout from Ferdinand’s murder, unwittingly leading Europe toward the greatest cataclysm it had ever seen. A revolutionary account of the genesis of World War I, July 1914 tells the gripping story of Europe’s countdown to war from the bloody opening act on June 28th to Britain’s final plunge on August 4th, showing how a single month--and a handful of men--changed the course of the twentieth century.
Call Number: D511.M33 2013ISBN: 0465031455Publication Date: 2013-04-09
The Cambridge History of the First World War by
The Cambridge History of the First World War is a comprehensive, three-volume work, which provides an authoritative account of the military, political, social, economic and cultural history of the Great War. Reflecting the very latest research in the field, the volumes provide a transnational guide to the course of war and how the dynamics of conflict unfolded throughout the world. Volume 1 surveys the military history, showing the brutal realities of a global war among industrialised powers, whilst Volumes 2 and 3 explore the social, economic, cultural and political challenges that the war presented to politicians, industrialists, soldiers and civilians. Written by a team of leading international historians, the volumes together reveal the ways in which the war transcended the boundaries of Europe, subsequently to transform the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, just as much as Europe itself.
Call Number: D521.C36 2014ISBN: 9781107660588Publication Date: 2014-01-09
The Great War by
The Great Waris a landmark history that firmly places the First World War in the context of imperialism. Set to overturn conventional accounts of what happened during this, the first truly international conflict, it extends the study of the First World War beyond the confines of Europe and the Western Front. By recounting the experiences of people from the colonies especially those brought into the war effort either as volunteers or through conscription, John Morrow's magisterial work also unveils the impact of the war in Asia, India and Africa. From the origins of World War One to its bloody (and largely unknown) aftermath, The Great Waris distinguished by its long chronological coverage, first person battle and home front accounts, its pan European and global emphasis and the integration of cultural considerations with political.
Call Number: D521.M826 2005ISBN: 9780415204408Publication Date: 2005-05-16
The Deluge : the Great War, America, and the remaking of the global order, 1916-1931 by
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - History Finalist for the Kirkus Prize - Nonfiction A searing and highly original analysis of the First World War and its anguished aftermath In the depths of the Great War, with millions dead and no imaginable end to the conflict, societies around the world began to buckle. The heart of the financial system shifted from London to New York. The infinite demands for men and mat#65533;riel reached into countries far from the front. The strain of the war ravaged all economic and political assumptions, bringing unheard-of changes in the social and industrialorder. A century after the outbreak of fighting, Adam Tooze revisits this seismic moment in history, challenging the existing narrative of the war, its peace, and its aftereffects. From the day the United States enters the war in 1917 to the precipice of global financial ruin, Tooze delineates the world remade by American economic and military power. Tracing the ways in which countries came to terms with America's centrality--including the slide into fascism--The Deluge is a chilling work of great originality that will fundamentally change how we view the legacy of World War I.
Call Number: D523.T46 2014ISBN: 0670024929Publication Date: 2014-11-13
World War I : the African front by
The definitive history of World War I's forgotten front: Britain versus Germany in East Africa to secure the belly of a continent. On August 7, 1914, Britain fired its first shots of World War I not in Europe but in the German colony of Togo. The campaign to eliminate the threat at sea posed by German naval bases in Africa would soon be won, but in the land war, especially in East Africa, British troops would meet far fiercer resistance from German colonial forces that had fully mastered the tactics of bush warfare. It was expected to be a "small war," over by Christmas, yet it would continue bloodily for more than four years, even beyond the signing of the Armistice in Europe. Its costs were immense, its butchery staggering (in excess of100,000 British troops and 45,000 native recruits dead). Utmost among the tragic consequences, though, was the waste laid to the land and its indigenous peoples in what one official historian described as "a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times." Imperialism had gone calamitously amok. This eye-opening account of the Great War in East Africa does not flinch at the daily horrors of an ill-fated campaign—not just the combat but also a hostile climate, disease, the terrible loneliness—nor does it fail to recount tales of extraordinary courage and the kind of adventure that inspired fiction like C. S. Forester'sThe African Queen, William Boyd'sAn Ice-Cream War, and Wilbur Smith'sShout at the Devil. In all, it demonstrates dramatically why even the most hardened of Great War soldiers preferred the trenches of France to the trauma of East Africa.
Call Number: D576.G3 P35 2008ISBN: 1933648902Publication Date: 2008-09-08
Selected Websites
- Internet History Sourcebooks - WWI The Internet Modern History Sourcebook is one of series of history primary sourcebooks. It is intended to serve the needs of teachers and students in college survey courses in modern European history and American history, as well as in modern Western Civilization and World Cultures.
- A Guide to World War I Materials The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material related to World War I, including photographs, documents, newspapers, films, sheet music, and sound recordings. This guide compiles links to World War I resources throughout the Library of Congress Web site.
- World War I Records - National Archives As the largest repository of American World War I records, the National Archives invites you to browse the wealth of records and information documenting the U.S. experience in this conflict, including photographs, documents, audiovisual recordings, educational resources, articles, blog posts, lectures, and events.
- WWI Portal from the Library of Congress With its unparalleled World War I collections, the Library of Congress is uniquely prepared to tell the story of the United States' participation in the Great War. The Library of Congress is commemorating the 100th anniversary of U.S. entry into the war with exhibitions, lectures, symposia, film programs, recordings, publications, veterans' stories, educational tools, and research guides to the Library's remarkable World War I resources.