14-18 - by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau & Annette Becker (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

With this brilliantly innovative book, reissued for the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker have shown that the Great War was the matrix on which all subsequent disasters of the twentieth century were formed.

Three elements of the conflict, all too often neglected or denied, are identified as those that must be grasped if we are to understand the war: First, what inspired its unprecedented physical brutality, and what were the effects of tolerating such violence? Second, how did citizens of the belligerent states come to be driven by vehement nationalistic and racist impulses? Third, how did the tens of millions bereaved by the war come to terms with the agonizing pain?

With its strikingly original interpretative strength and its wealth of compelling documentary evidence drawn from all sides in the conflict, 14-18: Understanding the Great War has quickly established itself as a classic in the history of modern warfare.

Review Quotes

"A pioneering, impassioned book." --Éric Roussel, Le Figaro Littéraire

"Extraordinarily lucid on complex themes . . . [A] sophisticated attempt to recover the war's significance . . . Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker are directors of the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne, and their book offers a splendidly readable synoptic introduction to the comparative and interdisciplinary work of that research center." --Hew Strachan, Foreign Affairs

About the Author

Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau is the Director of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and co-director of the Research Center of the Museum of the Great War (Historial de la Grande Guere) in the Somme.

Annette Becker is Professor of Contemporary History at Paris West University Nanterre La Défense and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.

Their extensive publications about World War I include the coauthored work, 14-18: Understanding the Great War.