What’s new and interesting on World War 1? In this Centennial year, you may want to read up on World War I. Here are a few suggestions from UT History faculty who have been studying and teaching about the First World War: David Crew, Philippa Levine, Mary Neuburger, Charters Wynn, and Emilio Zamora. Here are their suggestions.
Richard Fogarty, Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918
How did the half million soldiers who were drafted from France’s colonies fare during the war?
Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
In a lively style, The War That Ended Peace portrays the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned heads across Europe who failed to stop the descent into war
Louise Miller, A Fine Brother: The Life of Captain Flora Sandes
A readable and informative biography of a remarkable British woman who went to war-torn Serbia to minister to soldiers and typhus ridden civilians, but ended up entering the Serbian Army, where she rose to the level of decorated officer.
Karen Petrone, The Great War in Russian Memory (2011)
The socialist revolution and civil war that followed WW1 in the Russian empire meant that the war was never publically commemorated there as it was in western Europe. But it wasn’t entirely forgotten and this book shows how the Russian war was remembered.
José A. Ramírez, To the Line of Fire, Mexican Texans and World War I (2009).
A recent narrative history on Mexican Americans and the war.
Emilio Zamora, The World War I Diary of José de la Luz Sáenz (2014).
First-hand account by an American serviceman.
Benjamin Ziemann, War Experiences in Rural Germany, 1914-1923 (2007)
Drawing on firsthand accounts in diaries and letters, this book provides an unusual perspective on World War One as a ‘total war,’ tracing its effects not only on German soldiers recruited from rural communities in Southern Bavaria but also upon those who remained at home.
Classic General Histories:
Gerard J. De Groot, The First World War (1998).
John Keegan, The First World War (1998).
Paul Fussell, The Great War in Modern Memory (1970)
You might also like a review of Enzo Traverso’s important but still untranslated work on WW1 and WW2 as Europe’s Civil War, here on Not Even Past, by Alex Lang.
