The First World War

by Sir Martin Gilbert (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $19.85

  'One of the first books that anyone should read in beginning to try to understand this war and this century' New York Times Book Review

  It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11.15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would end officially almost five years later. Unofficially, it has never ended: The horrors we live with today were born in the First World War.

  It left millions - civilians and soldiers - maimed or dead. And it left us with new technologies of death: tanks, planes, and submarines; reliable rapid-fire machine guns, poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced us to unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners. Most of all, it changed our world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, whole populations lost their national identities as political systems and geographic boundaries realigned. Instabilities were institutionalised, enmities enshrined. Manners, mores, codes of behaviour, literature, education and class distinctions - all underwent a vast sea change. In all these ways, the twentieth century can be said to have been born on the morning of June 28, 1914.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1994

  $3.36

  If almost every war is worse than expected, none was more so than World War I. Instead of lasting a few months, its four years brought loss of life and enormous suffering millions. It caused the collapse of empires and redrew the map of Europe for ever. Illusions on all sides - military, political and cultural were shattered. This book charts the ever-growing development and horror of the war - not only the great battles on the Eastern and Western Fronts but the war at sea, in the air and the effects of the war far from the frontline. Throughout, the book records the courage and heroism of individual soldiers and civilians of many nations in this account of the Great War.