The Origins of World War I by Richard F. Hamilton, Holger H. Herwig ISBN: 0521102189
Published by Cambridge University Press on December 11th 2008
Genres: World War I
Pages: 552
Len's Summary: Summary examination of the motivations of the leadership of 12 major and minor powers in going to war. // An abridged version of the collection of essays published by Cambridge as The Origins of World War I and edited by the same scholars. This version concentrates on the handful of men who made the decisions for war. The abridgement is even more readable than the original. The authors cut through the fog of nationalism and ex post facto justifications to the roots of the conflict. Affordable and highly recommended.
A Naval History of World War I
Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern ISBN: 1557503524
Published by US Naval Institute Press on April 15th 2012
Genres: World War I, Naval, Battle History
Pages: 616
Len's Summary: A comprehensive one-volume treatment of the important war at sea.
Good-Bye to All That
Good-Bye to All That: An Autobiography by Robert Graves ISBN: 0385093306
Published by Anchor Books on February 1st 1958
Genres: World War I, Personal Memoirs
Pages: 347
Len's Summary: Most famous memoir a survivor of the War, a Captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, later a distinguished novelist and poet.
Over There
Over There: The Story of America's First Great Overseas Crusade by Frank Freidel ISBN: 007557036X
Published by McGraw-Hill Companies on December 1st 1990
Genres: World War I, Battle History, Personal Memoirs, Illustrated, Youth-accessible
Pages: 244
Len's Summary: Story of the American military effort told sympathetically, with gusto; uses many firsthand accounts.
The War to End All Wars
The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I by Edward M. Coffman ISBN: 0813109558
Published by University Press of Kentucky on July 23rd 1998
Genres: World War I, Battle History, Diplomacy and Politics
Pages: 440
Len's Summary: Still the best summary of America’s experience in the Great War.
The World Crisis: An Abridgement
The World Crisis: An Abridgement of the Classic Four-Volume History of World War I by Winston S. Churchill ISBN: 0684194538
Published by Scribner on November 24th 1992
Genres: World War I, Personal Memoirs, Battle History, Diplomacy and Politics
Pages: 864
Len's Summary: Masterful grand survey of the War; obviously strongly British in outlook; very good on naval matters.
Testament of Youth
Testament Of Youth by Vera Brittain ISBN: 0143039237
Published by Victor Gollancz on August 28th 1933
Genres: Biography & Autobiography, Historical, Literary, Personal Memoirs
Pages: 688
Len's Summary: Memoir of a V.A.D. nurse who lost several loved ones in combat and became a pacifist and feminist afterwards.
Knights of the Air
Knights of the Air (Epic of Flight) by Ezra Bowen ISBN: 0809432528
Published by Time-Life Books Inc. on January 1st 1980
Genres: World War I, Aviation, Illustrated, Youth-accessible
Pages: 192 pages
Len's Summary: Enjoyable introduction to the air war; extensive photos of aces and aircraft.
The German High Command at War
The German High Command at War by Robert Asprey ISBN: 9780595365654
Published by iUniverse on November 9th 2005
Genres: Germany, World War I, Battle History, Diplomacy and Politics
Pages: 558
Len's Summary: Looks at military operations from a German viewpoint; humanizes their military establishment and the Kaiser without justifying their actions. Good discussions of the Eastern Front.
AMERICAN HERITAGE HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
American Heritage History of World War I by S.L.A. Marshall ISBN: 9781612308067
Published by New Word City on September 5th 2014
Genres: World War I, Battle History, Diplomacy and Politics, Illustrated, Maps, Youth-accessible
Pages: 705
Len's Summary: A comprehensive history that’s well illustrated and contains helpful maps plus commentary by a distinguished historian; good for starting.
The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914-1918
The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig ISBN: 0340573481
Published by Bloomsbury Academic on September 1st 2009
Pages: 512
Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution
Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution by Nicholas A. Lambert ISBN: 1570034923
Published by University of South Carolina Press on September 1st 2002
Pages: 410
The First World War Volume I: To Arms
The First World War: Volume I: To Arms by Hew Strachan ISBN: 9780191608346
on April 26th 2001
Genres: History, World, Military, World War I, Europe, General
Pages: 1248
Len's Summary: This book won WFA’s Norman B.Tomlinson, Jr. Annual Book Prize for 2001.
German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial
German Atrocities, 1914 by John N. Horne, Alan Kramer ISBN: 9780300107913
Published by Yale University Press on 2001
Genres: History, Military, World War I
Pages: 608
Len's Summary: Winner of the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History, this is a carefully researched, but densely drafted volume establishing that stories of German atrocities in Belgium and France were not just Entente propaganda. Winner of the 2002 Tomlinson Prize.
France and The Great War, 1914-1918
France and the Great War by Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Annette Becker ISBN: 9780521666312
Published by Cambridge University Press on March 13th 2003
Genres: History, Europe, General, Military, World War I, Social History
Pages: 202
A Fraternity of Arms: America and France in the Great War
A Fraternity of Arms by Robert Bowman Bruce ISBN: 9780700612536
Published by University Press of Kansas on 2003
Genres: History, Europe, France, Military, Strategy, World War I, Political Science, International Relations, General
Pages: 380
Len's Summary: Thanks in large measure to expert (and often bilingual) French instructors a core of four 28,000-man divisions of the American army was ready to join the French in blunting and then reversing the final German push on Paris at the Marne in July 1918. It is in the resounding German setback on the Marne of July 18, 1918 – not their August 8th defeat by the British at Amiens – that Bruce finds the beginning of the end for German arms on the Western Front.
Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory and the First World War in Britain
Fighting Different Wars by Janet S. K. Watson ISBN: 9780521831536
Published by Cambridge University Press on February 19th 2004
Pages: 333
Len's Summary: Cultural and intellectual history contrasting war as an experience and war as a memory and developing the consequences of postwar constructions. The author is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. The Tomlinson Prize carries an award of $3,000 funded by a grant from WFA Director-emeritus Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr.
Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War
Pyrrhic Victory ISBN: 9780674034310 Published by Belknap Press on March 31, 2008
Genres: History, Military, World War I, Europe, France, Western
Pages: 592
The Second Battle of the Marne
The Second Battle of the Marne by Michael S. Neiberg ISBN: 9780253003546
Published by Indiana University Press on April 9th 2008
Genres: History, Military, World War I, Europe, General
Pages: 232
Len's Summary: Winner of the Annual WFA Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. Book Prize for 2008, this book breaks new ground on a key battle in the last year of the war.
To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918
To Conquer Hell by Edward G. Lengel ISBN: 9780805079319
Published by Macmillan on January 8th 2008
Genres: History, Military, World War I, United States
Pages: 491
Len's Summary: A new history of this major battle, the most costly in American history, by a Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Draws on primary sources including memoirs and letters of US veterans. Professor Lengel was a speaker at the the WFA-USA National Seminar at Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September where he was awarded 2007 WFA Norman B. Tomlinson Book Prize for this book.
Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century
Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century by William J. Philpott ISBN: 1408701081
Published by Little Brown and Company on August 1st 2009
Pages: 721
Len's Summary: Despite the over-blown title, this is an uncommonly good history of the battle covering French and German forces, as well as the performance of the BEF’s Kitchener armies.
The Final Battle: Soldiers of the Western Front in the German Revolution of 1918
The Final Battle: Soldiers of the Western Front in the German Revolution of 1918 by Scott Stephenson ISBN: 0521519462
Published by Cambridge University Press on September 1st 2009
Genres: History, Military, World War I, Modern, 20th Century
Pages: 374
Len's Summary: A scholarly look at the morale and political outlook of the German army following the armistice of November 11, 1918.
The Russian Origins of the First World War
The Russian Origins of the First World War by Sean McMeekin ISBN: 9780674063204
Published by Harvard University Press on December 12th 2011
Genres: History, Military, World War I, Europe, Russia & the Former Soviet Union, Political Science, International Relations, General
Pages: 344
Len's Summary: The author contends that the Tzarist regime believed a general European war to be in its national interest; that is sought to humiliate Vienna, conquer Constantinople and open the Straits as an ice-free trade route to the Mediterranean and the west. Winner of the 2011 Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. Prize for the best work of history in English on World War One (1914-1918)
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey ISBN: 0700620176
Published by University Press of Kansas on August 15th 2014
Genres: History, Europe, Eastern, Military, World War I
Pages: 440
Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War
Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War by Nicholas A. Lambert ISBN: 9780674063068
Published by Harvard University Press on January 1st 2012
Genres: History, Military, World War II, Strategy, Business & Economics, Economic History
Pages: 662
Len's Summary: Before the war, the Admiralty conceived an economic warfare campaign deploying Britain’s virtual monopolies in banking, communications and merchant shipping as additional weapons against Germany. These weapons proved decisive. This book received the World War One Historical Association's annual Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr., prize for the best work of history in English on World War One (1914-1918) for 2013. Professor Lambert is a Visiting Affiliate Professor at the University of Maryland. His book, 'Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution' (1999) won the Tomlinson 2000 prize.
The Cambridge Companion to Poetry of the First World War
The Cambridge Companion to the Poetry of the First World War by Santanu Das ISBN: 1107692954
Published by Cambridge University Press on December 6th 2013
Pages: 336
Len's Summary: Leading scholars reexamine WWI poetry in English.
Mr. Standfast
Mr. Standfast by John Buchan ISBN: 1853262250
Published by Nelson on January 5th 2008
Pages: 288
Len's Summary: Third volume in the Richard Hannay series (The Thirty Nine Steps, Greenmantle). Intelligence officer Hannay‘s odyssey takes him from France to England and Scotland then back to the Western Front
Poems of the Great War: An Anthology, 1914-1918
Poems of the Great War: An Anthology, 1914-1918 by Christopher Navratil ISBN: 0762450886
Published by Running Press on March 25th 2014
Genres: Poetry, Literary Collections
Pages: 240
Len's Summary: Nearly 50 poems from the best-known poets of the era.
The Care and Management of Lies
The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear ISBN: 0062220500
Published by HarperCollins on July 1st 2014
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Historical, General, War & Military
Pages: 319
Len's Summary: Lives forever changed by war with a sub-theme on the importance of food to the fighting man.
Traitor
Traitor by Stephen Daisley ISBN: 9781590177518
Published by New York Review of Books on March 18th 2014
Genres: Fiction, War & Military, Historical, Religious
Pages: 320
Len's Summary: A bond between an ANZAC soldier and a Turkish army doctor at Gallipoli leads to disgrace for the Aussie.
President’s Quarterly Update—April 2024
Dear Members and Friends,
I’m extremely pleased with the level of WW1HA’s activities, some of which may be unseen by you.
Our Journal, “World War One Illustrated,” is now published three times a year with an average length of 48 pages. Each issue is filled with high-quality articles covering a variety of topics, including the popular “My Kin in the Great War” series.
Our electronic newsletter, “Here and There with the WW1HA” is published monthly, with an assortment of Association events and articles covering WW1 topics.
Sal Compagno’s San Francisco Bay Area Chapter continues to hold monthly meetings via Zoom, while Mark Benbow’s Eastern Chapter is holding quarterly meetings.
As President, I am also hosting a quarterly “Fireside Chat” online. The last one emphasized WW1 poetry. The next one will emphasize WW1-era music.
If you’re already a member, I thank you for your membership and encourage you to take part in these activities. If you’re not a member, I ask you to join and participate in these activities. Participate in the events and consider submitting an article for the journal or newsletter.
Reach out to me with your comments: lavarennes@meuse-argonne.com.
Regards,
Randy Gaulke
