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The Great War and the shaping of the 20th century
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1996
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Library Journal Review
Winter, a Cambridge historian, and Baggett, of KCBT-TV and the executive producer of the series, have coauthored a tremendously valuable companion book to the eight-hour PBS documentary of the same name to be aired in November 1996. Their work is rich in photographs, illustrations, and personalized accounts of the total inhumanity of trench warfare. The authors aim to show how World War I shaped the politics and culture of the 20th century, and their work is well explained and documented. Chapter 8's opening sentence is a good indicator of this: "The Great War, a leap into the modern age, unleashed an avalanche of the unmodern. This paradox has given the 20th century its characteristic form." The authors exhibit current historical thought about World War I but are not necessarily lineal in their approach. They describe the watershed of deeds and atrocities that provided the fodder for anti-Semitism and National Socialism, which in turn were catalysts of World War II. Strongly recommended for public, academic, and school libraries.‘Harry V. Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. System, Iola (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Though a companion to a PBS documentary, this powerful volume offers far more than a montage of sound bites. Winter, a Cambridge historian and among the best active scholars of the subject, here writing with Blaine, the show's executive producer, interprets WWI as a cultural phenomenon that shifted boundaries between public and private spheres, blurred distinctions between military and civilian and established new paradigms for issues of race, gender, class and empire. The text makes these points by telling the war's story from the perspective of its participants at all levels, whenever possible in their own words. This personalization is no less effective for reflecting the demands of TV viewers for instant empathy. The 300 illustrations and seven maps here brilliantly complement the prose. No one seeing the photo of a horse carcass blown into a tree will ever again question either the war's contributions to surrealism or its challenge to rationality. And no one can regard the photo of "the man with a broken face" without realizing the matter-of-fact obscenity of all war. There are some errors of fact: German reserve units in 1914 were not, for example, concentrated in Lorraine; the British army had no Duke of York's Light Infantry in its order of battle. And some judgments are too neat: generals and statesmen weren't quite the blinkered blockheads depicted in this populist account. Nevertheless, this book stands independently of its TV counterpart as a learned and literate introduction to the event that defined a century. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
This is the companion book to the eagerly awaited PBS series scheduled for broadcast over four evenings in November. Winter is a Cambridge historian, Baggett an executive producer of the series. Together, they have written an outstanding chronicle of a struggle and an era that set the tone for the balance of the twentieth century. Perhaps taking a cue from Ken Burns, they have seamlessly interwoven the narrative of military struggles with the personal stories of many "ordinary" people who manned both the trenches and the home front. Although the authors break no new ground in military history, their efforts to examine the cultural effects of the war from a "bottom-up" perspective are fascinating and often emotionally jarring. The book is lavishly illustrated, often with seldom seen photos, and they complement the elegantly written text. The result is a great work of popular history that can also stand up to more scholarly examinations. --Jay Freeman
Kirkus Review
This companion volume to a PBS documentary series (to air in November) offers a cultural as well as a military portrait of the war that, the authors say, set the scene for events that would play out through the rest of the 20th century. So, in addition to battles, Cambridge historian Winter and series producer Baggett draw on diaries, letters, and other documents to paint a human- scale picture of the Great War. Photos portray the effects on the home front, from women working in a British airplane factory to French war orphans. More horrifying images include the bloodied coat of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination kindled the conflagration of war; a corpse-strewn field after the Battle of the Marne; and rows of Armenian corpses--evidence of the Turkish genocide. The accompanying text ranges from the concept of ``total war,'' or war without restraint, to the hard-sell recruitment tactics employed in England as the war ground on. The images are of varying quality, and their reproduction is less than ideal, but collectively, they relate a terrible story whose aftermath remains with us eight decades later. (Penguin; $39.95; Nov. 11; 432 pages; ISBN 0-670-87119-2)
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