By 1756 the wilderness war for control of North America that erupted two years earlier between France and England had expanded into a global struggle among all of Europe's Great Powers. Its land and sea battles raged across the North American continent, engulfed Europe and India, and stretched from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, Indian, and Pacific waters. The new conflict, now commonly known as the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763, was a direct continuation of the last French and Indian War. This study explores the North American campaigns in relation to events elsewhere in the world, from the ministries of Whitehall and Versailles to the land and sea battles in Europe, Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Few wars have had a more decisive effect on international relations and national development. The French and Indian War resulted in France's expulsion from almost all of the Western Hemisphere, except for some tiny islands in the Caribbean and St. Lawrence. Britain emerged as the world's dominant sea power and would remain so for two centuries. Finally, within a generation or two the vast debts incurred by Whitehall and Versailles in waging this war would help to stimulate revolutions in America and France that would forever change world history.

This volume is the result of an international conference held at Sapienza University of Rome in June 2014, which brought together scholars from different countries to re-analyse and re-interpret the events of the First World War, one hundred years after a young Bosnian Serb student from the “Mlada Bosna,” Gavrilo Princip, “lit the fuse” and ignited the conflict which was to forever change the world. The Great War – initially on a European and then on a world scale – demonstrated the fragility of the international system of the European balance of powers, and determined the dissolution of the great multinational empires and the need to redraw the map of Europe according to the principles of national sovereignty. This book provides new insights into theories of this conflict, and is characterized by internationality, interdisciplinarity and a combination of different research methods. The contributions, based on archival documents from various different countries, international and local historiography, and on the analysis of newspaper articles, postcards, propaganda material, memorials and school books, examine ideological and historiographical debates, the memory of the war and its most important contemporary and popular narratives, and the use of propaganda for the mobilization of public opinion, in addition to military, social, political, economic and psychological aspects of the conflict.

The British Empire played a crucial part in the First World War, supplying hundreds of thousands of soldiers and labourers as well as a range of essential resources, from foodstuffs to minerals, mules, and munitions. In turn, many imperial territories were deeply affected by wartime phenomena, such as inflation, food shortages, combat, and the presence of large numbers of foreign troops. This collection offers a comprehensive selection of essays illuminating the extent of the Empire’s war contribution and experience, and the richness of scholarly research on the subject. Whether supporting British military operations, aiding the British imperial economy, or experiencing significant wartime effects on the home fronts of the Empire, the war had a profound impact on the colonies and their people. The chapters in this volume were originally published in Australian Historical Studies, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, First World War Studies or The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.

This is the first truly definitive history of the First World War, the war that has done most to shape the twentieth century. The first generation of its historians had access to only a limited range of sources, and their focus was primarily on military events. More recent approaches have embraced cultural, diplomatic, economic, and social history. In Hew Strachan's authoritative and readable history these fresh perspectives are incorporated with the military and strategic narrative. The result is an account that breaks the bounds of national preoccupations to become both global and comparative. To Arms, the first of three volumes in this magisterial study, examines not only the causes of the war and its opening clashes on land and sea, but also the ideas that underpinned it, and the motivations of the people who supported it. It provides full and pioneering accounts of the war's finances, of the war in Africa, and of the Central Powers' bid to widen the war outside Europe.

Ranging from soldiers reading newspapers at the front to authors' responses to the war, this book sheds new light on the reading habits and preferences of men and women, combatants and civilians, during the First World War. This is the first study of the conflict from the perspective of readers.

Examines the backdrop of rivalry among world powers, the events that immediately preceded the first World War, the effects of the war itself, and its long term consequences. Suggested level: secondary.

The First World War has left its imprint on British society and the popular imagination to an extent almost unparalleled in modern history. Its legacy of mass death, mechanized slaughter, propaganda, and disillusionment swept away long-standing romanticized images of warfare, and continues to haunt the modern consciousness. Focusing on the lives of ordinary Britons, George Robb's engaging new study seeks to comprehend what it meant for an entire society to undergo the tremendous shocks and demands of total war; how it attempted to make sense of the conflict, explain it to others, and deal with the war's legacies. British Culture and the First World War - examines the war's impact on ideologies of race, class and gender, the government's efforts to manage news and to promote patriotism, the role of the arts and sciences, and the commemoration of the war in the decades since - Synthesizes much of the best and most recent scholarship on the social and cultural history of the war. - Reclaims a great deal of neglected or forgotten popular cultural sources such as films, cartoons, juvenile literature and pulp fiction. Compact but comprehensive, this accessible and refreshing text is essential reading for anyone interested in British society and culture during the turbulent years of the First World War.

The First World War was a transformative experience for women, facilitating their entry into new spaces and alternative spheres of activity, both on the home front and on the edges of danger zones in Europe and beyond. The centenary of the conflict is an appropriate moment to reassess what we choose to remember about women’s roles and responsibilities in this period and how women recorded their experiences. It is timely to (re)consider the narratives of women’s involvement not only as nurses, VADs and mourning mothers, but as pacifist campaigners, poets, war correspondents and contributors to developing genres of war writing. This interdisciplinary volume examines women’s representations of wartime experience across a wide range of genres, including modernist fiction, ghost stories, utopia, poetry, life-writing and journalism. Contributors provide fresh perspectives on women’s written responses to the conflict, exploring women’s war work, constructions of femininity and the maternal in wartime, and the relationship between feminism, suffrage and pacifism. The volume reinforces the importance of the retrieval of women’s wartime experience, urging us to rethink what we choose to commemorate and widening the presence of women in the expanding canon of war writing. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s Writing.

This volume brings together leading historians and international relations scholars to debate the causes of the First World War.

Despite the voluminous historical literature on the First World War, a volume devoted to the theme of communication has yet to appear. From the communication of war aims and objectives to the communication of war call-up and war experience and knowledge, this volume fills the gap in the market, including the work of both established and newly emerging scholars working on the First World War across the globe. The volume includes chapters that focus on the experience of belligerent and also neutral powers, thus providing a genuinely representative dimension to the subject.