Download or read book War How Conflict Shaped Us written by Margaret MacMillan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war. And she has shown us how in this brilliant, elegantly written book.”—H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war—organized violence—comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity. Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control? Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.
Download or read book Political Violence in the Weimar Republic 1918 1933 written by Dirk Schumann and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-04 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In noting that political violence was the product of choices made by political actors rather than the result of irresistible forces ...Schumann issues a pertinent warning while making a first-rate contribution to the scholarly literature on the Weimar Republic. Central European History A well-documented and skillfully argued book. German Studies Review In his exceptional regional study of the Prussian province of Saxony, Schumann offers a richly detailed analysis of political violence in the Weimar Republic...This is a wordy but methodical and ultimately convincing work of scholarship. Choice Schumann ... calls into question some assumptions, provides interesting nuances, and helps to refine our understanding of the nature of political violence in Weimar Germany. Journal of Modern History ... provides a well-documented, solid narrative and challenging analysis of Weimar's political violence... American Historical Review This] definitive work, rich in source material and analysis, dispels stereotypes of political violence in the Weimar Republic. Historische Zeitschrift The Prussian province of Saxony-where the Communist uprising of March 1921 took place and two Combat Leagues (Wehrverb nde) were founded (the right-wing Stahlhelm and the Social Democratic Reichsbanner) - is widely recognized as a politically important region in this period of German history. Using a case study of this socially diverse province, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of political violence in Weimar Germany with particular emphasis on the political culture from which it emerged. It refutes both the claim that the Bolshevik revolution was the prime cause of violence, and the argument that the First World War's all-encompassing "brutalization" doomed post-1918 German political life from the very beginning. The study thus contributes to a view of the Weimar Republic as a state in severe crisis but with alternatives to the Nazi takeover. Dirk Schumann is Professor of History at Georg-August University, G ttingen. He is the co-editor of Life After Death (2003), Violence and Society after the First World War (first issue of Journal of Modern European History 2003]), Between Mass Death and Individual Loss (2007). Most recently, he has edited Raising Citizens in the "Century of the Child" The United States and German Central Europe in Comparative Perspective (2010).
Download or read book The Vanquished written by Robert Gerwarth and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This war is not the end but the beginning of violence. It is the forge in which the world will be hammered into new borders and new communities. New molds want to be filled with blood, and power will be wielded with a hard fist.' Ernst Jünger (1918) For the Western allies 11 November 1918 has always been a solemn date - the end of fighting which had destroyed a generation, and also a vindication of a terrible sacrifice with the total collapse of their principal enemies: the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. But for much of the rest of Europe this was a day with no meaning, as a continuing, nightmarish series of conflicts engulfed country after country. In this highly original, gripping book Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not the fighting on the Western front which proved so ruinous to Europe's future, but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were wrecked by revolution, pogroms, mass expulsions and further major military clashes. If the War itself had in most places been a struggle purely between state-backed soldiers, these new conflicts were mainly about civilians and paramilitaries, and millions of people died across central, eastern, and south-eastern Europe before the USSR and a series of rickety and exhausted small new states came into being. Everywhere there were vengeful people, their lives racked by a murderous sense of injustice, and looking for the opportunity to take retribution against enemies real and imaginary. Only a decade later, the rise of the Third Reich and other totalitarian states provided them with the opportunity they had been looking for.
Download or read book War Violence and the Modern Condition written by Bernd-Rüdiger Hüppauf and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 1997 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume will explore the specific role which war has played in the constitution of a modern mentality. It will be divided into three parts: one dealing with issues of conceptualizing war, violence, and modernity/ modernism, one devoted to issues of the First World War as an exemplary experience in the 20th century; and one concerned with issues of violence and its representation in the aftermath of the first modern war.
Download or read book War in Peace written by Robert Gerwarth and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First World War did not end in November 1918. In Russia and Eastern Europe it finished up to a year earlier, and both there and elsewhere in the world it triggered conflicts that lasted down to 1923. Paramilitary formations were prominent in this continuation of the war. Paramilitary violence was an important ingredient in the clashes unleashed by class revolution in Russia. It structured the counter-revolution in central and Eastern Europe, including Finland and Italy, which in the name of order and authority reacted against a mythic version of Bolshevik class violence. It also shaped the struggles over borders and ethnicity in the new states that replaced the multi-national empires of Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Turkey. It was prominent on all sides in the wars for Irish independence. Paramilitary violence was charged with political significance and acquired a long-lasting symbolism and influence. War in Peace explores the differences and similarities between these various kinds of paramilitary violence within one volume for the first time. It contributes to our understanding of the difficult transitions from war to peace, re-situates the Great War in a longer-term context, and explains its enduring impact.
Download or read book Dynamic of Destruction written by Alan Kramer and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-11-06 with total page 448 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 The Cambridge World History of Violence written by Louise Edwards and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sociology of War and Violence written by Siniša Malešević and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War is a highly complex and dynamic form of social conflict. This book demonstrates the importance of using sociological tools to understand the changing character of war and organised violence. The author offers an original analysis of the historical and contemporary impact that coercion and warfare have on the transformation of social life, and vice versa. Although war and violence were decisive components in the formation of modernity most analyses tend to shy away from the sociological study of the gory origins of contemporary social life. In contrast, this book brings the study of organised violence to the fore by providing a wide-ranging sociological analysis that links classical and contemporary theories with specific historical and geographical contexts. Topics covered include violence before modernity, warfare in the modern age, nationalism and war, war propaganda, battlefield solidarity, war and social stratification, gender and organised violence, and the new wars debate.
Download or read book On War written by Carl von Clausewitz and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Effects of War on Society written by Giorgio Ausenda and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conference 'Effects of War on Society' was the first in a series aimed at placing in perspective the sociocultural variables that make outbreaks of war probable, and identifying for policy-makers steps that can be taken to control these variables. The papers focus on analysis of historical thinking on war, anthropological analysis of the effects of war on societies at different levels of sociocultural integration, the expansion and decline of multi-ethnic states, and the wider effects of war -- political, economic and moral. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Download or read book Over Here written by David M. Kennedy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-16 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a new Afterword, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kennedy reveals how the First World War's legacy of Wilsonian idealism is reflected today in President George W. Bush's National Security Strategy.
Download or read book The Better Angels of Our Nature written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
Download or read book Paths out of the Apocalypse written by Ota Konrád and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-09 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paths out of the Apocalypse uses violence as a prism through which to investigate the profound social, cultural, and political changes experienced by (post-) Habsburg Central Europe during and immediately after the Great War. It compares attitudes toward, and experiences and practices of, physical violence in the mostly Czech-speaking territories of Bohemia and Moravia, the German-speaking territories that would constitute the Republic of Austria after 1918, and the mostly German-speaking region of South Tyrol. Based on research in national and local archives and copious secondary literature, the study argues that, in the context of total war, physical violence became a predominant means of conceptualizing and expressing social-political demands as well as a means of demarcating various notions of community and belonging. The authors apply an interdisciplinary understanding of violence informed by sociological and psychological theories as well as by rigorous empirical historiographical approach. First, they examine the most severe kind of physical violence - murder - against the backdrop of shifting scientific and media discourses during the war and its immediate aftermath. Second, the authors use numerous cases of collective violence, ranging from less serious everyday conflicts to massive hunger demonstrations and riots, to unravel its 'language', thus deciphering the attitudes and values shared among an ever-growing group of perpetrators. Paths out of the Apocalypse thus fundamentally rethinks some key topics currently debated in the scholarship on early twentieth-century Central Europe, the First World War, violence, nationalism, and modern European comparative social and cultural history.
Download or read book Legacies of Violence Eastern Europe s First World War written by Jochen Böhler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-08-20 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First World War began in the Balkans, and it was fought as fiercely in the East as it was in the West. Fighting persisted in the East for almost a decade, radically transforming the political and social order of the entire continent. The specifics of the Eastern war such as mass deportations, ethnic cleansing, and the radicalization of military, paramilitary and revolutionary violence have only recently become the focus of historical research. This volume situates the ‘Long First World War’ on the Eastern Front (1912–1923) in the hundred years from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century and explores the legacies of violence within this context. Content Jochen Böhler/Włodzimierz Borodziej/Joachim von Puttkamer: Introduction I. A World in Transition Joachim von Puttkamer: Collapse and Restoration. Politics and the Strains of War in Eastern Europe Mark Biondich: Eastern Borderlands and Prospective Shatter Zones. Identity and Conflict in East Central and Southeastern Europe on the Eve of the First World War Jochen Böhler: Generals and Warlords, Revolutionaries and Nation-State Builders. The First World War and its Aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe II. Occupation Jonathan E. Gumz: Losing Control. The Norm of Occupation in Eastern Europe during the First World War Stephan Lehnstaedt: Fluctuating between ‘Utilisation’ and Exploitation. Occupied East Central Europe during the First World War Robert L. Nelson: Utopias of Open Space. Forced Population Transfer Fantasies during the First World War III. Radicalization Maciej Górny: War on Paper? Physical Anthropology in the Service of States and Nations Piotr J. Wróbel: Foreshadowing the Holocaust. The Wars of 1914–1921 and Anti-Jewish Violence in Central and Eastern Europe Robert Gerwarth: Fighting the Red Beast. Counter-Revolutionary Violence in the Defeated States of Central Europe IV. Aftermath Julia Eichenberg: Consent, Coercion and Endurance in Eastern Europe. Poland and the Fluidity of War Experiences Philipp Ther: Pre-negotiated Violence. Ethnic Cleansing in the ‘Long’ First World War Dietrich Beyrau: The Long Shadow of the Revolution. Violence in War and Peace in the Soviet Union Commentary Jörn Leonhard: Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe’s First World War – A Commentary from a Comparative Perspective
Download or read book Germany After the First World War written by Richard Bessel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A social history of Germany in the years following the First World War, this book explores Germany's defeat and the subsequent demobilization of its armies, events which had devastating social and psychological consequences for the nation. Bessel examines the changes brought by the War to Germany, including those resulting from the return of soldiers to civilian life and the effects of demobilization on the economy. He demonstrates that the postwar transition was viewed as a moral crusade by Germans desperately concerned about challenges to traditional authority; and he assesses the ways in which the experience of the War, and memories of it, affected the politics of the Weimar Republic. This is an original and scholarly book, which offers important insights into the sense of dislocation, both personal and national, experienced by Germany and Germans in the 1920s, and its damaging legacy for German democracy.
Download or read book The Rhyme of History written by Margaret MacMillan and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2013-12-18 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the 100th anniversary of World War I approaches, historian Margaret MacMillan compares current global tensions—rising nationalism, globalization’s economic pressures, sectarian strife, and the United States’ fading role as the world’s pre-eminent superpower—to the period preceding the Great War. In illuminating the years before 1914, MacMillan shows the many parallels between then and now, telling an urgent story for our time. THE BROOKINGS ESSAY: In the spirit of its commitment to high-quality, independent research, the Brookings Institution has commissioned works on major topics of public policy by distinguished authors, including Brookings scholars. The Brookings Essay is a multi-platform product aimed to engage readers in open dialogue and debate. The views expressed, however, are solely those of the author. Available in ebook only.
Download or read book What Every Person Should Know About War written by Chris Hedges and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed New York Times journalist and author Chris Hedges offers a critical -- and fascinating -- lesson in the dangerous realities of our age: a stark look at the effects of war on combatants. Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U.S. military documentation of the brutalizing physical and psychological consequences of combat to speak for itself. Hedges poses dozens of questions that young soldiers might ask about combat, and then answers them by quoting from medical and psychological studies. • What are my chances of being wounded or killed if we go to war? • What does it feel like to get shot? • What do artillery shells do to you? • What is the most painful way to get wounded? • Will I be afraid? • What could happen to me in a nuclear attack? • What does it feel like to kill someone? • Can I withstand torture? • What are the long-term consequences of combat stress? • What will happen to my body after I die? This profound and devastating portrayal of the horrors to which we subject our armed forces stands as a ringing indictment of the glorification of war and the concealment of its barbarity.
