Destination Western Front: London's Omnibuses Go to War by Roy Larkin ISBN: 9780956501400
Published by BPR Publishers on March 2010
Pages: 80
Len's Summary: A little-know aspect of motor transport in The Great War.
Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia
Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda ISBN: 9781845138370
Published by Aurum Press on March 24th 2011
Genres: Biography & Autobiography, Historical, Middle East
Pages: 784
Len's Summary: A new biography of that dashing warrior Lawrence of Arabia. Korda is the author of bios of U.S. Grant and Eisenhower, as well as a book on the Battle of Britain. -- A new biography of T. E. Lawrence argues that his vision for a new political paradigm in the Middle East could have made a vast difference in today’s world. The author is a noted novelist and former Editor-in-Chief for Simon & Schuster.
Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War
Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War by Alisa Miller, Alisa Miller and Laura Rowe ISBN: 1443827371
Published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing on April 1st 2011
Pages: 325
Len's Summary: Moves attention away from the Western Front to focus on other theatres and forgotten experiences of war including in neutral Holland and Switzerland.. Based on papers presented at a Society of World War One Studies conference held during September 2009 in London.
Horsemen in No Man’s Land: British Cavalry and Trench Warfare, 1914-1918
Horsemen in No Man’s Land: British Cavalry and Trench Warfare, 1914-1918 by David Kenyon ISBN: 9781848843646
Published by Pen & Sword Military on December 2011
Genres: History, Military, World War I, Technology & Engineering, Military Science
Pages: 293
Len's Summary: Challenges conventional wisdom on the value of cavalry on the Western Front.
Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy
Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy by Patrick J. Kelly ISBN: 9780253001757
Published by Indiana University Press on May 3rd 2011
Genres: History, Military, Naval, Biography & Autobiography, World War I
Pages: 608
Len's Summary: Grand Admiral Tirpitz (1849-1930) dominated German naval policy during the years leading up to WWI. This is both a compelling biography and an examination of the historiography of the period.
We Are Coming, Unafraid: The Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War
I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
We Are Coming, Unafraid: The Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War by Michael Keren, Shlomit Keren ISBN: 9780742552746
Published by Rowman & Littlefield on August 1st 2010
Genres: History, Jewish, Military, World War I, Religion, Judaism
Pages: 191
Len's Summary: The story of the three British Jewish Legions recruited from Canada, the US and England based on volunteer letters and diaries.
World War I: The American Soldier Experience
World War I: The American Soldier Experience by Jennifer D. Keene ISBN: 9780803234871
Published by University of Nebraska Press on April 1st 2011
Genres: History, Military, World War I, United States
Pages: 217
Len's Summary: Based on the letters and memoirs of men and women who served.
Violence Against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914-1920
Violence Against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914-1920 by Heather Jones ISBN: 1107638267
Published by Cambridge University Press on June 2nd 2011
Genres: History, Europe, General, Military, Modern, 20th Century
Pages: 451
Len's Summary: A scholarly study of how the war radicalized captivity treatment undermining international law protecting POWs. As the war wore on and manpower grew scarce, increasing numbers of captives were not sent to the home front, but rather retained as laborers near the Western Front. See also Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity, Richard G. Speed III, Greenwood, 1990.
Clydebank Battlecruisers: Forgotten Photographs from John Brown’s Shipyard
Clydebank Battlecruisers: Forgotten Photographs from John Brown's Shipyard by Ian Johnston ISBN: 9781591141204
Published by Naval Institute Press on August 15th 2011
Genres: History, Military, General, Pictorial, Naval, Transportation, Ships & Shipbuilding
Pages: 192
Len's Summary: Account of the five battlecruisers built by John Brown from 1907 to 1920 culminating with HHS Hood, the largest warship of her day.
Imagining the Middle East: The Building of an American Foreign Policy, 1918-1967
Imagining the Middle East: The Building of an American Foreign Policy, 1918-1967 by Matthew F. Jacobs ISBN: 9780807834886
Published by Univ of North Carolina Press on September 12th 2011
Genres: History, Middle East, General, United States, 20th Century, Political Science, International Relations
Pages: 318
Len's Summary: Traces the evolution of US perceptions of the Middle East from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire to the 1967 War.
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild ISBN: 9780547750316
Published by Mariner Books on March 6th 2012
Genres: History, Military, World War I
Pages: 448
Len's Summary: Existing tensions in British society exacerbated by the huge human and material costs of industrialized war shaped conflict that often pitted brother against sister. father against son.
Poems of World War One, 1914-1919
Poems of World War One, 1914-1919 by Steven Leslie Hill ISBN: 9781908336101
Published by Tommies Guides on September 1st 2011
Pages: 56
Len's Summary: Twenty five brief verses with illustrations.
The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World
The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World by Holger H. Herwig ISBN: 9780812978292
Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks on February 8th 2011
Genres: History, Military, World War I
Pages: 391
Len's Summary: The first four weeks of WWI: a first-rate new study in best-laid-plans gone awry by a prize-wining Canadian military historian. // An important and well-crafted new look at the decisive days between September 5 and September 11, 1914 drawing on archival material thought destroyed in WWII by a distinguished Canadian historian and winner of the WFA Tomlinson Book Prize.
Gallipoli
Gallipoli by Peter Hart ISBN: 9780199361274
Published by Oxford University Press on March 5th 2014
Genres: History, Australia & New Zealand, Europe, General, Military, World War I
Pages: 534
Len's Summary: British oral historian Hart reexamines the failed Gallipoli campaign drawing on letters and memoirs of soldiers on both sides. Lively and very readable.
British Silent Cinema and The Great War
British Silent Cinema and The Great War by Michael Hammond, Michael Williams ISBN: 0230292623
Published by Palgrave Macmillan on November 15th 2011
Pages: 216
Len's Summary: These essays look at the British movie industry’s response to The Great War and how that industry shaped the war’s memory in the 19 teens and 20s.
Lady Under Fire on the Western Front: The Great War Letters of Lady Dorothie Feilding MM
Lady Under Fire on the Western Front: The Great War Letters of Lady Dorothie Feilding MM by Dorothie Feilding ISBN: 9781848843226
on April 2010
Pages: 226
Len's Summary: The record of nearly three years of driving an ambulance behind the Western Front.
Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War
Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War by Guoqi Xu ISBN: 9780674049994
Published by Harvard University Press on March 20th 2011
Genres: History, Asia, General, Military, World War I, World, Modern, 20th Century, Social Science, Minority Studies, Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies
Pages: 336
Len's Summary: The story of 140 thousand illiterate Chinese contract coolie laborers contracted by the British and French for service behind the lines in France and Flanders; revolutionary China’s major contribution to WWI made in an effort to stave off powerful external threats from Japan and other powers.
Foch in Command: The Forging of a First World War General
Foch in Command: The Forging of a First World War General by Elizabeth Greenhalgh ISBN: 9781107633858
Published by Cambridge University Press on January 30th 2014
Genres: History, Military, General, World War I, Modern, 20th Century, Europe
Pages: 570
Len's Summary: A new look at the life and achievements of the allied generalissimo of WWI.
Naval Weapons of World War One: Guns, Torpedoes, Mines, and ASW Weapons of All Nations: An Illustrated Directory
Naval Weapons of World War One: Guns, Torpedoes, Mines, and ASW Weapons of All Nations: An Illustrated Directory by Norman Friedman ISBN: 9781848321007
Published by Seaforth Publishing on December 12th 2011
Pages: 320
Len's Summary: A valuable resource book on naval weapons used by all the belligerents and by several neutral powers, as well.
Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East
Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East by Roger Ford ISBN: 0753827980
Published by Phoenix on August 1st 2010
Pages: 496
Len's Summary: A broad-brush narrative history spanning all the Middle East theatres from Gallipoli, through the Caucasus, Palestine, the Sinai and the Hejaz to Mesopotamia; many detailed maps and numerous illustrations. -- A narrative history of the sweep of war from the Russo-Turkish war in the Caucasus, to Gallipoli, Macedonia, Suez, Palestine and Mesopotamia followed by the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of modern Turkey. Also available in August 2011 in paperback from the same publisher ISBN 978 1 6059 8196 3, $17.95. // A new survey history of the war in Mesopotamia and Palestine.
Shooting the Front: Allied Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War
Shooting the Front: Allied Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War by Terrence J. Finnegan ISBN: 9780752460529
Published by Spellmount on September 1st 2011
Genres: History, Military, Aviation, Photography, Technology & Engineering, Military Science
Pages: 408
Len's Summary: First published by NDIS Press in 2006, this is the second revised edition of a unique analysis of the development and tactical employment of aerial reconnaissance and photographic interpretation on the Western Front, the principal use of airpower in that conflict. // The author spoke at the WFA 2006 Annual National Seminar.
The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism
The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism by Casper W. Erichsen, David Olusoga ISBN: 9780571231423
Published by Faber & Faber on August 1st 2011
Genres: History, Africa, South, General, Europe, Germany, Military, Other, Political Science, Political Process
Pages: 394
Len's Summary: An indictment of German colonialism in South West Africa (present-day Namibia); the 1905 massacres of Herero and Nama tribesmen.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund ISBN: 9780307739285
on September 4th 2012
Genres: History, Military, World War I
Pages: 540
Len's Summary: A Swedish historian gives us an intimate history generated from the writings of 20 men and woman who participated.
Royal Flying Corps Technical Notes on the Airplanes and Engines of 1916
Royal Flying Corps Technical Notes on the Airplanes and Engines of 1916 by Patrick Ellam ISBN: 9781450299480
Published by iUniverse on March 11th 2011
Genres: History, Military, Aviation, Transportation, General
Pages: 132
Len's Summary: How airplanes of 1916 were built and how to fly them, by a British pursuit pilot.
Nothing Less Than War: A New History of America’s Entry into World War I
Nothing Less Than War: A New History of America's Entry into World War I by Justus D. Doenecke ISBN: 9780813130026
Published by University Press of Kentucky on March 8th 2011
Genres: History, United States, 20th Century
Pages: 394
Len's Summary: A short history of American neutrality.
Haig: Master of the Field
Haig: Master of the Field by John Davidson ISBN: 9781848843622
on November 15th 2010
Genres: History, Military, General
Pages: 192
Len's Summary: Concentrates on the dramatic events of 1917 and 1918 and Haig’s conduct of operations in the final two years of war.
Race, Empire and First World War Writing
Race, Empire and First World War Writing by Santanu Das ISBN: 9781107664494
Published by Cambridge University Press on January 20th 2014
Genres: Literary Criticism, European, General, History, Military, World War I, Social Science
Pages: 350
Len's Summary: Using primary sources, Das looks at the experiences of various ethnic groups during WW1.
Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials
Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials by Vahakn N. Dadrian, Taner Akçam ISBN: 0857452517
Published by Berghahn Books on December 1st 2011
Genres: History, Middle East, Turkey & Ottoman Empire, Law, Criminal Law, General
Pages: 376
Len's Summary: Analysis of the official Ottoman record Turkish military tribunals concerning crimes against Armenians during WWI. One of a number of new analyses of the 1915 Armenian massacres as the centenary of those events approaches.
Edward Thomas: Prose Writings: A Selected Edition, Volume 1: Autobiographies
Edward Thomas: Prose Writings: A Selected Edition, Volume 1: Autobiographies by Guy Cuthbertson ISBN: 9780199586950
on March 31st 2011
Genres: Biography & Autobiography, Literary, Literary Criticism, Poetry, General
Pages: 400
Len's Summary: Best remembered for his poetry which was published posthumously, Thomas (killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917) was appreciated by contemporaries for his prose.
The Hidden Threat: Mines and Minesweeping in WWI
The Hidden Threat: Mines and Minesweeping in WWI by Jim Crossley ISBN: 9781848842724
on October 2011
Pages: 165
Len's Summary: Mines cost the Royal Navy five battleships, three cruisers, 22 destroyers, four submarines, and a host of other vessels.
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography by John Milton Cooper ISBN: 9780307277909
Published by Vintage Books on April 5th 2011
Genres: Biography & Autobiography, Presidents & Heads of State, History, General
Pages: 702
Len's Summary: Pulitzer Prize finalist. Cooper is the leading living Wilson scholar. He writes on a President who remains controversial to this day a hundred years after he was elected by a plurality (defeating Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft) to the first of two terms in office. Remembered principally for leading America in to WWI, Wilson also deserves to be remembered for important amounts of progressive legislation enacted during his first term. // The first bio of the 28th President in some 20 years written by the noted historian John Milton Cooper, author of several books on the Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, the Progressive Era and WWI. A sympathetic examination of the life and politics of the 28th President by a master historian and reigning expert on Wilson’s career.
The Murder of the Romanovs
The Murder of the Romanovs by Andrew Cook ISBN: 9781848681033
Published by Amberley on March 2010
Genres: History, Europe, Russia & the Former Soviet Union
Pages: 256
Len's Summary: Reinvestigation of a familiar tragedy.
Sacred Places: Canadian Cemeteries of the Great War-Vol. I, Belgium
Sacred Places: Canadian Cemeteries of the Great War-Vol. I, Belgium by Norm Christie ISBN: 1896979211
Published by CEF Books on January 1st 2011
Pages: 238
Len's Summary: The story of 168 cemeteries where Canadian dead are buried in France and Flanders.
For Our Old Comrades: The Story & Ephemera of the Vimy Pilgrimage, July,1936
For Our Old Comrades: The Story & Ephemera of the Vimy Pilgrimage, July,1936 by Norm Christie ISBN: 1896979750
Published by CEF Books Pages: 105
Len's Summary: Recalls the Great Pilgrimage of 1936 in which 6,200 Canadian WWI veterans, war widows and their children traveled to France for the dedication of the Vimy Ridge Memorial.
The Zeppelin Base Raids: Germany 1914
The Zeppelin Base Raids: Germany 1914 by Ian Castle, Peter Dennis ISBN: 0674012844
on April 19th 2011
Pages: 64
Len's Summary: Royal Naval Air Service attempts to forestall the Zeppelin threat. For more detail see: The Flatpack Bombers by Ian Gardiner (Pen & Sword, 2009).
The Great War: An Illustrated History
The Great War: An Illustrated History by Phil Carradice ISBN: 1848688814
on July 2011
Pages: 160
Len's Summary: A survey history of WWI.
Zeppelins Over England, 1914-1918
Zeppelins Over England 1914-18 by Horst Freiherr Treu von Buttlar Brandenfels ISBN: 1907677356
Published by Helion & Company on May 2nd 2012
Genres: History, Military, World War I, Aviation
Pages: 152
Len's Summary: A peek at what it was like to fly in and command a Zeppelin in combat.
Blood and Iron: Letters from the Western Front
Blood and Iron: Letters from the Western Front by Hugh Montagu Butterworth ISBN: 184884297X
on November 19th 2011
Pages: 234
Len's Summary: The letters of Hugh Butterworth of the 9th Rifle Brigade.
Happy Days!: A Humorous Narrative in Drawings of the Progress of American Arms 1917-1919
Happy Days!: A Humorous Narrative in Drawings of the Progress of American Arms 1917-1919 by Alban B. Butler ISBN: 9781849086295
Published by Osprey Publishing on November 22nd 2011
Genres: History, Military, World War I, United States, Humor, Form, Comic Strips & Cartoons, Topic, Political
Pages: 110
Len's Summary: Originally published on the 10th anniversary of the end of the war these humorous cartoons were drawn by an aide to 1st Division commander Charles Summerall.
The War Horses: The Tragic Fate of a Million Horses in the First World War
The War Horses by Simon Butler ISBN: 9780857040848
Published by Halsgrove on May 1st 2011
Pages: 144
Len's Summary: Focuses on draught animals requisitioned for pulling guns and wagons in the BEF reminding us that WWI was largely a conflict of animal motive power.
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
