Download or read book Dynamic of Destruction written by Alan Kramer and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2008 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 26 August 1914 the world-famous university library in the Belgian town of Louvain was looted and destroyed by German troops. The international community reacted in horror - 'Holocaust at Louvain' proclaimed the Daily Mail - and the behaviour of the Germans at Louvain came to be seen as the beginning of a different style of war, without the rules that had governed military conflict up to that point - a more total war, in which enemy civilians and their entire culture were now 'legitimate' targets.Yet the destruction at Louvain was simply one symbolic moment in a wider wave of cultural destruction and mass killing that swept Europe in the era of the First World War. Using a wide range of examples and eye-witness accounts from across Europe at this time, award-winning historian Alan Kramer paints a picture of an entire continent plunging into a chilling new world of mass mobilization, total warfare, and the celebration of nationalist or ethnic violence - often directed expressly at the enemy's civilian population.
Download or read book Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain written by Dr Ross J Wilson and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the hundredth anniversary approaches, it is timely to reflect not only upon the Great War itself and on the memorials which were erected to ensure it did not slip from national consciousness, but also to reflect upon its rich and substantial cultural legacy. This book examines the heritage of the Great War in contemporary Britain. It addresses how the war maintains a place and value within British society through the usage of phrases, references, metaphors and imagery within popular, media, heritage and political discourse. Whilst the representation of the war within historiography, literature, art, television and film has been examined by scholars seeking to understand the origins of the 'popular memory' of the conflict, these analyses have neglected how and why wider popular debate draws upon a war fought nearly a century ago to express ideas about identity, place and politics. By examining the history, usage and meanings of references to the Great War within local and national newspapers, historical societies, political publications and manifestos, the heritage sector, popular expressions, blogs and internet chat rooms, an analysis of the discourses which structure the remembrance of the war can be created. The book acknowledges the diversity within Britain as different regional and national identities draw upon the war as a means of expression. Whilst utilising the substantial field of heritage studies, this book puts forward a new methodology for assessing cultural heritage and creates an original perspective on the place of the Great War across contemporary British society.
Download or read book Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain written by Ross J. Wilson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the hundredth anniversary approaches, it is timely to reflect not only upon the Great War itself and on the memorials which were erected to ensure it did not slip from national consciousness, but also to reflect upon its rich and substantial cultural legacy. This book examines the heritage of the Great War in contemporary Britain. It addresses how the war maintains a place and value within British society through the usage of phrases, references, metaphors and imagery within popular, media, heritage and political discourse. Whilst the representation of the war within historiography, literature, art, television and film has been examined by scholars seeking to understand the origins of the 'popular memory' of the conflict, these analyses have neglected how and why wider popular debate draws upon a war fought nearly a century ago to express ideas about identity, place and politics. By examining the history, usage and meanings of references to the Great War within local and national newspapers, historical societies, political publications and manifestos, the heritage sector, popular expressions, blogs and internet chat rooms, an analysis of the discourses which structure the remembrance of the war can be created. The book acknowledges the diversity within Britain as different regional and national identities draw upon the war as a means of expression. Whilst utilising the substantial field of heritage studies, this book puts forward a new methodology for assessing cultural heritage and creates an original perspective on the place of the Great War across contemporary British society.
Download or read book Communities under Fire written by Alex Dowdall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-22 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1914 and 1918, the Western Front passed through some of Europe's most populated and industrialised regions. Large towns including Nancy, Reims, Arras, and Lens lay at the heart of the battlefield. Their civilian inhabitants endured artillery bombardment, military occupation, and material hardship. Many fled for the safety of the French interior, but others lived under fire for much of the war, ensuring the Western Front remained a joint civil-military space. Communities under Fire explores the wartime experiences of civilians on both sides of the Western Front, and uncovers how urban communities responded to the dramatic impact of industrialized war. It discusses how war shaped civilians' personal and collective identities, and explores how the experiences of military violence, occupation, and forced displacement structured the attitudes of civilians at the front towards the rest of the nation. Drawing on a vast array of archival sources, letters, diaries, and newspapers in English, French, and German, it reveals the history of the Western Front from the perspective of its civilian inhabitants. From Leningrad to Warsaw, Hamburg, and, more recently, Sarajevo and Donetsk, urban violence has remained a feature of warfare in Europe, turning cities into battlefields. On each occasion, civilian populations were at the heart of military operations, and forced to adapt to life in a warzone. This was also the case between 1914 and 1918, despite the myth that the First World War was predominantly a soldiers' war. The civilian inhabitants of the Western Front were among the first to suffer the full impact of modern, industrialized war in an urban setting. Communities under Fire explains the multiple ways by which these urban residents responded to, were changed by, succumbed to, or survived the enormous pressures of life in a warzone.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of European History 1914 1945 written by Nicholas Doumanis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-05 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The period spanning the two World Wars was unquestionably the most catastrophic in Europe's history. Despite such undeniably progressive developments as the radical expansion of women's suffrage and rising health standards, the era was dominated by political violence and chronic instability. Its symbols were Verdun, Guernica, and Auschwitz. By the end of this dark period, tens of millions of Europeans had been killed and more still had been displaced and permanently traumatized. If the nineteenth century gave Europeans cause to regard the future with a sense of optimism, the early twentieth century had them anticipating the destruction of civilization. The fact that so many revolutions, regime changes, dictatorships, mass killings, and civil wars took place within such a compressed time frame suggests that Europe experienced a general crisis. The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945 reconsiders the most significant features of this calamitous age from a transnational perspective. It demonstrates the degree to which national experiences were intertwined with those of other nations, and how each crisis was implicated in wider regional, continental, and global developments. Readers will find innovative and stimulating chapters on various political, social, and economic subjects by some of the leading scholars working on modern European history today.
Download or read book Germans as Minorities during the First World War written by Panikos Panayi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a global comparative perspective on the relationship between German minorities and the majority populations amongst which they found themselves during the First World War, this collection addresses how ’public opinion’ (the press, parliament and ordinary citizens) reacted towards Germans in their midst. The volume uses the experience of Germans to explore whether the War can be regarded as a turning point in the mistreatment of minorities, one that would lead to worse manifestations of racism, nationalism and xenophobia later in the twentieth century.
Download or read book Promoting Peace Inciting Violence written by Jolyon Mitchell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how media and religion combine to play a role in promoting peace and inciting violence. It analyses a wide range of media - from posters, cartoons and stained glass to websites, radio and film - and draws on diverse examples from around the world, including Iran, Rwanda and South Africa. Part One considers how various media forms can contribute to the creation of violent environments: by memorialising past hurts; by instilling fear of the ‘other’; by encouraging audiences to fight, to die or to kill neighbours for an apparently greater good. Part Two explores how film can bear witness to past acts of violence, how film-makers can reveal the search for truth, justice and reconciliation, and how new media can become sites for non-violent responses to terrorism and government oppression. To what extent can popular media arts contribute to imagining and building peace, transforming weapons into art, swords into ploughshares? Jolyon Mitchell skillfully combines personal narrative, practical insight and academic analysis.
Download or read book Iron and Blood written by Peter H. Wilson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 981 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the acclaimed The Thirty Years War and Heart of Europe, a masterful, landmark reappraisal of German military history, and of the preconceptions about German militarism since before the rise of Prussia and the world wars. German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative. Looking beyond Prussia to German-speaking Europe across the last five centuries, Wilson finds little unique or preordained in German militarism or warfighting. Iron and Blood takes as its starting point the consolidation of the Holy Roman Empire, which created new mechanisms for raising troops but also for resolving disputes diplomatically. Both the empire and the Swiss Confederation were largely defensive in orientation, while German participation in foreign wars was most often in partnership with allies. The primary aggressor in Central Europe was not Prussia but the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, yet Austria’s strength owed much to its ability to secure allies. Prussia, meanwhile, invested in militarization but maintained a part-time army well into the nineteenth century. Alongside Switzerland, which relied on traditional militia, both states exemplify the longstanding civilian element within German military power. Only after Prussia’s unexpected victory over France in 1871 did Germans and outsiders come to believe in a German gift for warfare—a special capacity for high-speed, high-intensity combat that could overcome numerical disadvantage. It took two world wars to expose the fallacy of German military genius. Yet even today, Wilson argues, Germany’s strategic position is misunderstood. The country now seen as a bastion of peace spends heavily on defense in comparison to its peers and is deeply invested in less kinetic contemporary forms of coercive power.
Download or read book Memorialising Shakespeare written by Edmund G. C. King and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive account of global Shakespeare commemoration in the period between 1916 and 2016. Combining historical analysis with insights into current practice, Memorialising Shakespeare covers Shakespeare commemoration in China, Ukraine, Egypt, and France, as well as Great Britain and the United States. Chapter authors discuss a broad range of commemorative activities—from pageants, dance, dramatic performances, and sculpture, to conferences, exhibitions, and more private acts of engagement, such as reading and diary writing. Themes covered include Shakespeare’s role in the formation of cultural memory and national and global identities, as well as Shakespeare’s relationship to decolonisation and race. A significant feature of the book is the inclusion of chapters from organisers of recent Shakespeare commemoration events, reflecting on their own practice. Together, the chapters in Memorialising Shakespeare show what has been at stake when communities, identity groups, and institutions have come together to commemorate Shakespeare.
Download or read book Germany s Empire in the East written by David Hamlin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-03 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collapse of political and economic order in World War One prompted Germany to turn to empire in Eastern Europe.
Download or read book The Horrible Void Between the Trenches written by Dr. Clifton Wilcox and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2015-05-14 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armies are virtually never ready to fight major wars. Warfare continues to change over time, which means no two wars are exactly alike. Armys leaders struggle to anticipate the next war, yet it is unrealistic to predict with perfection. The advent of new technology and tactics, unexpected adversaries, the vast size and complexity of military organizations, undetectable capabilities, and unforeseen goals signify gaps will exist between the war an army expects to fight and the war it must fight. Yet, throughout history there has been no army on Earth that has been accused of total unpreparedness than those that went to war in Europe in August of 1914. There is no conflict that more vividly conjures up the image of wasteful military incompetence than the First World War, in which a wholesale chain-of-command on both sides utterly failed to foresee the scale, duration and character of a war transformed by modern weaponry and mass mobilization. The millions cut down among the artillery barrages, machine gun fire and gas clouds have become the quintessential symbol of military unpreparedness and the inability to adapt.
Download or read book Dissonant Lives written by Mary Fulbrook and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-09 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines ways in which Germans of different generations lived through the violent eruptions and rapid regime changes of the 20th century, revealing striking generational patterns.
Download or read book The First Age of Industrial Globalization written by Maartje Abbenhuis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an accessible and lively survey of the global history of the age of industrialization and globalization that arose in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars and collapsed in the maelstrom of the First World War. Through a combination of industrialization, technological innovation and imperial expansion, the industrializing powers of the world helped to create inter-connected global space that left few regions untouched. In ten concise chapters, this book relays the major shifts in global power, economics and society, outlining the interconnections of global industrial, imperial and economic change for local and regional experiences, identities and politics. It finishes with an exposé on the catastrophic impact of the First World War on this global system. The First Age of Industrial Globalization weaves together the histories of industrialization, world economy, imperialism, international law, diplomacy and war, which historians usually treat as separate developments, and integrates them to offer a new analysis of an era of fundamental historical change. It shows that the revolutionary changes in politics, society and international affairs experienced in the 19th century were inter-connected developments. It is essential reading for any student of modern global history.
Download or read book Economic and Natural Disasters since 1900 written by John Singleton and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A crisis is a period of uncertainty that may or may not lead to disaster, depending in part on the capacity of actors to make sense of what is happening and respond effectively. Disasters in different spheres occur and recur at different speeds and in idiosyncratic ways, but in essence they follow the same pattern. In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and Eurozone upheavals this timely book argues that the disaster cycle – a framework normally used in the context of natural disasters – is equally applicable to the analysis of other types of catastrophe. Employing a modified version of the disaster cycle framework to compare and analyse a range of catastrophes in different spheres, the author draws on ideas from a variety of disciplines including economics and economic history, disaster studies, management, and political science. This unique comparative approach presents case studies of several important disasters: Hurricane Katrina, the First World War, the depression of the early 1930s, Welsh coal mining accidents, the deadly effects of smoking tobacco, and the Global Financial Crisis and Eurozone catastrophe of the early twenty first century. The author argues that economists and economic policy makers routinely misuse the term crisis to describe episodes that ought to be called disasters. This accessible and fascinating exploration will appeal to students and scholars in economic history, disaster studies, management, public policy, and related disciplines. The comparison of crisis and disaster management is also essential reading for policy makers.
Download or read book The Routledge History of Genocide written by Cathie Carmichael and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge History of Genocide takes an interdisciplinary yet historically focused look at history from the Iron Age to the recent past to examine episodes of extreme violence that could be interpreted as genocidal. Approaching the subject in a sensitive, inclusive and respectful way, each chapter is a newly commissioned piece covering a range of opinions and perspectives. The topics discussed are broad in variety and include: genocide and the end of the Ottoman Empire Stalin and the Soviet Union Iron Age warfare genocide and religion Japanese military brutality during the Second World War heritage and how we remember the past. The volume is global in scope, something of increasing importance in the study of genocide. Presenting genocide as an extremely diverse phenomenon, this book is a wide-ranging and in-depth view of the field that will be valuable for all those interested in the historical context of genocide.
Download or read book Imperial Germany Revisited written by Sven Oliver Müller and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German Empire, its structure, its dynamic development between 1871 and 1918, and its legacy, have been the focus of lively international debate that is showing signs of further intensification as we approach the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. Based on recent work and scholarly arguments about continuities and discontinuities in modern German history from Bismarck to Hitler, well-known experts broadly explore four themes: the positioning of the Bismarckian Empire in the course of German history; the relationships between society, politics and culture in a period of momentous transformations; the escalation of military violence in Germany's colonies before 1914 and later in two world wars; and finally the situation of Germany within the international system as a major political and economic player. The perspectives presented in this volume have already stimulated further argument and will be of interest to anyone looking for orientation in this field of research.
Download or read book The Great War and Memory in Central and South Eastern Europe written by Oto Luthar and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-03-21 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a series of chapters about the Great War and memory in Central and South-Eastern Europe which will widen the insufficient and spotty representations of the Great War in that region. The contributors deliver an important addition to present-day scholarship on the more or less unknown war in the Balkans and at the Italian fronts. Although it might not completely fill the striking gap in the historical representations of the situation between the Slovene-Italian Soča-Isonzo river in the North-West and the Greek-Macedonian border mountains around Mount Kajmakčalan in the South-East, it will add significantly to the scholarship on the Balkan theatre of war and provide a much-needed account of the suffering of civilians, ideas, loyalties and cultural hegemonies, as well as memories and the post-war memorial landscape. The contributors are Vera Gudac Dodić, Silviu Hariton, Vijoleta Herman Kaurić, Oto Luthar, Olga Manojlović Pintar, Ahmed Pašić, Ignác Romsics, Daniela Schanes, Fabio Todero, Nikolai Vukov and Katharina Wesener.
