Publisher’s Description: “Otte shows definitively the key to understanding how & why Europe descended into war is to be found in the near-collective failure of statecraft in Europe, not in abstract concepts such as the ‘balance of power'”.Centenary News Review: “An outstanding book. Certainly, as measured by the number of bookmarks I made “I didn’t know that”, “that’s interesting”, “I must read that again”… it warrants that description”.
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Publisher’s Description: “In The Assassination of the Archduke, Greg King and Sue Woolmans offer readers a vivid account of the lives – and cruel deaths – of Franz Ferdinand and his beloved Sophie. Combining royal biography, romance, and political assassination, the story unfolds against a backdrop of glittering privilege and an Imperial Court consumed with hatred”.
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Publisher’s Description: “In 1914: The Year the World Ended, award-winning historian Paul Ham tells the story of the outbreak of the Great War from German, British, French, Austria-Hungarian, Russian and Serbian perspectives.Along the way, he debunks several stubborn myths”.
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Publisher’s Description: “One Morning In Sarajevo reconstructs the last days of the imperial powers on the brink of the great war. Here is the story of the poor Bosnian students who set out to strike a blow for Serbia and inadvertently started that war. Smith has returned to the original sources and found the few surviving witnesses to those far-off times”.
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Publisher’s description: “Painstakingly researched and written with novelistic immediacy, Wounded tells the full story of medical care in the war for the first time. But this is not just a book about the injured men and the medical personnel that treated them: their experience encapsulates what it was like to fight, live and die for four long years at the Western Front. Wounded is an important contribution to our understanding of the First World War.”Centenary News Review: “Wounded by Emily Mayhew is the kind of non-fiction that makes all other non-fiction look bad. It is compelling, thoughtful and well articulated in its exploration of the much overlooked role of the wounded in World War One.”
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Publisher’s Description: ‘This anthology combines some of the greatest poetry to have emerged from the 1914-18 conflict with an extraordinary collection of paintings from contemporary artists, mainly sourced from the Imperial War Museum.’Centenary News Comment: This is a moving anthology that pairs poetry with art of the First World War. Organised thematically, the art pairings perfectly complement the poetry as well as being enlightening in their own right.
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Publisher’s Description: ‘The Great War was the first in our history to have a deep impact on every aspect of civilian life. In an overdue attempt to portray the real effect of the War on life at home, David Bilton examines all the major events of the period and charts their effect on everyday life for those trying to live a normal existence.’
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Publisher’s description: “This collection, edited by Professor Paul O’Prey, looks to challenge the notion that all war poetry was of a similar anti-war sentiment, focusing on fifteen poets who all saw active military service and composed poems while they worked, nursed and fought.Poems from the Front includes ‘November 11th’ by Robert Graves, appearing for the first time as a poem in its own right. A street ballad, it was written in draft to arts patron Edward Marsh in November 1918. Persuaded not to publish it that year, Graves instead released a version in 1969, considering it unprintable until then. “Centenary News Comment: “O’Prey has collected a multitude of voices to reflect the authentic experience of life on the front line. It is a compelling, emotive and eye-opening anthology.”
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Publisher’s Description: ‘ A raw and shockingly honest portrait of men engaged in war, ‘that peculiarly human activity’, the original edition was subject to ‘prunings and excisions’ because the bluntness of language was thought to make the book unfit for public distribution. This edition restores them.’
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Centenary News Review: “The Trigger is an intelligent, well-written, but above all, fresh account of Gavrilo Princip, and the assassination. It’s highly enjoyable to read, and provides fascinating new insights into a one hundred year old story.”
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